


There's No World Without You

by xheartoflifex



Category: Bandom, Blink-182, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco, Real Person Fiction, The Academy Is...
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-29
Updated: 2011-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xheartoflifex/pseuds/xheartoflifex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever said being normal was easy. But then again, when you're a superhero, that's kind of implied...</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No World Without You

**.patrick.**  
When Patrick Stump was seven years old, he used to get up early to watch X-Men every Saturday morning. To watch a group of friends hanging around in bright colored costumes and defeating all the bad guys in one minute, and then at another to have them be hanging out as normal people – Patrick had never seen something as interesting. He was hooked. From that point on, it was all he wanted. To be _‘that guy’_. Like the superheroes on TV. To save the world, get the girl, and have an awesome job and friends – all at the same time. Patrick knew he could do it. He could be a superhero. The TV shows, the comics, the action figures. It was at this point that the obsess- **fascination** began.

When Patrick was thirteen years old, he had his first kiss. It was at a Halloween party, and he was dressed like a pirate (his mom made the costume for him, so shut the hell up). He had come with his friends, who were in music classes with him. It was a pretty lame party, and Patrick had dumped most of his costume in the corner; only sitting there with an eye patch and hat still on. They were all sitting in a circle playing truth or dare, bored out of their minds, when Ryan grinned, and whispered something to Spencer.

“No! That’s gross,” Spencer exclaimed, before beginning to laugh. Ryan looked at him before bursting out laughing.

Patrick kind of hated Ryan Ross, with his stupid haircut that he was always flipping to one side and the fact that he wore eyeliner while Patrick wasn’t allowed to. And especially when he and Spencer had these weird unspoken conversations. Ryan and Spencer were best friends _to the max_. They were dressed like the Blues Brothers, even thought Spencer had admitted to Patrick that he didn’t even know who they were. Ryan had forced him to wear it, he told Patrick.

“Alright, so Brendon…” Patrick looked to his left. Brendon Urie had moved here from Utah a few weeks into the year. He smiled awkwardly at Ryan before dropping his head shyly, his red rimmed glasses drooping down his nose. “…truth or dare?”

“Dare.” Ryan burst out laughing again at Brendon’s answer, practically falling on top of Spencer, who held onto him.

“I dare you to go into that closet,” he started, motioning over Brendon’s shoulder, “with Patrick and make out for two minutes!” More laughter. Patrick seriously wanted to die. But not until he killed Ryan. Although, Brendon looked worse than he did. Between looking like he was going to wet his pants and cry. Patrick sighed, getting to his feet.

Quickly he grabbed Brendon’s hand and pulled him towards the closet. He still felt Ryan’s eyes on the back of his neck. “Wait – we don’t have to,” Brendon started weakly. He rubbed the back of his neck, breaking eye contact with Patrick, who felt himself relaxing a bit. “I mean, if you don’t want to…”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Just stop. If I didn’t want to, I’d still be sitting outside. Now just relax.” He shut the door. It was then that he realized Brendon was wearing a Batman costume. Smiling to himself, he looked Brendon in the eye. “Seriously, you’re cool. I like you a lot. So just shut up and let me kiss you.”

Brendon grinned. Patrick wrapped a hand around Brendon’s neck and pulled him close. It wasn’t pretty at first, a crash of teeth and skin, but slowly they got the hang of it, and when they walked out of the closet, ignoring Ryan’s cackling, they smiled at one another, fingers still tangled together.

Patrick and Brendon had been best friends ever since then.

When Patrick was fourteen years old, he jerked off for the first time. To one of the many Spiderman comic books that resided under his bed. At that point, it really didn’t occur to him that a pattern was forming. Or that he may have some sort of psychological problem…

He still remembered that afternoon like it was yesterday. He was home alone after school, both of his parents working late. The rain splashed onto his window in a steady rhythm, which maybe was slightly ironic, if he was one to think about things like that, but he wasn’t.

Normal teenage boys were supposed to use pictures of celebrities, or thoughts of their girlfriends or even porn, for fuck’s sake.

Patrick and his friends weren’t normal. They were pretty fucked up. When Patrick asked Brendon about his first time, all Brendon did was grin and mess Patrick’s hair before kissing him on the cheek, skipping away from a now dumbstruck Patrick.

Ryan claimed he was normal, talking about how he and his imaginary girlfriend from his art class were in love and all he had needed was the thought of her, because they were so in love, and how the others would never understand a love like theirs. This was the girlfriend that also had no name, no picture, and none of them had ever met, as well. Spencer simply rolled his eyes every time Ryan brought her up. He told Patrick later that Ryan had been listening to a recording of NSYNC the entire time. All Patrick did was ask “Justin or JC?” before beginning to laugh.

Bringing it up with Spencer, was a different story. He turned a lovely shade of purple, began to stammer, and averted his eyes from Ryan at all costs, who in turn called him ‘a socially stunted oddity’.

Patrick ran his left thumb over the comic book slowly, while his right hand undid the zipper of his jeans. As he gripped onto himself, his eyes slowly slid shut. The hand around his comic book tightened as he pictured the hand around his dick wasn’t actually his, but Peter Parker’s. Stroking himself harder, fisting his hands into the bed sheets until his right hand was sticky and cramped, Patrick was in bliss. Yeah, it was pretty good.

When Patrick was seventeen years old, he got beat up by his chemistry lab partner’s boyfriend. So high school wasn’t one of the best times of his life, but he was getting through it with his head down and average grades along the way. If Cassadee could just have done the same, Patrick would’ve been fine. They worked together in class all the time, and if it wasn’t for her always knowing everything, Patrick would’ve done a lot worse in the class.

But when they two of them were forced to work together on a project that required a lot of supplies, Patrick didn’t exactly hand over his money right away. Cassadee was a straight-A student and had already done the project herself. She simply wanted to be reimbursed. But Patrick was saving his money for the new Batman comic, and felt the project didn’t deserve his money. He had told her that they could’ve done the project without the supplies, but she chose not to listen to him. Therefore, that warranted him not having to pay for anything. At least, in his own mind.

This type of thinking earned him a broken nose, black eye, bruises, and a severely deflated ego from Cassadee’s boyfriend Brent. Not to mention he lost all of his money. It was then that Patrick realized he needed to grow up. As he stared back at his broken face in the mirror, he was embarrassed by what he saw. As he placed the ice pack on his face, he wasn’t sure what hurt more – the physical pain, or the pain from knowing how he got here.

Brendon had repeatedly tried to convince him that it wasn’t a big deal, that comic book nerds had to deal with their fair share of crap. He gave Patrick half of the sugar cookie his mom made with a smile, telling him not to feel to bad, since Cassadee was just Brent’s beard. Apparently the newest rumor to hit the school was that Brent Wilson and Alex Greenwald had been caught having sex under the bleachers while Cassadee and the other cheerleaders were on the field practicing.

“Seriously, he couldn’t have picked someone prettier? And I’m not even talking about Alex! Cassadee needs to lay off the peroxide, I’m telling you!” Brendon exclaimed, slamming his palm on the table and cookie crumbs flying from his mouth. Patrick could tell this was his attempt to make Patrick feel better, which he appreciated.

But in all honestly, nothing could make him feel better. He was a loser. And this had just solidified everything he’d always thought about himself and his friends. He was just the worst out of all of them.

There was no such thing as superheroes. They were simply figments of someone’s imagination created when the world was in a time of doom and gloom in hopes of brightening the public’s spirit. Men couldn’t walk through walls or fly. There was no such thing as a lasso of truth, or radioactive spiders. Patrick needed to get over this phase. He was going to be eighteen in a few months, for fuck’s sake. He needed a life.

So later that week, he pulled out the large under bed storage container he owned and dragged it outside to his backyard. One by one, he lit each of his comic books on fire and watched as they turned into ashes. When he stepped back from the pile of ashes that had accumulated on the patio, he felt like he had accomplished something. He brushed off his hands and walked inside, leaving his past life behind him.

There was no such thing as superheroes.

  


  
:: ::

  
At this moment in time, however, Patrick **_really_** wished there was such a thing as superheroes. He could use a Superman or a Batman at this point. He chuckled at the thought, but then stopped, as he realized that he really couldn’t breathe and erupted into a fit of weak, wheezing coughs.

All he wanted was to be a good person. Was that so hard to do? He did okay in school, had a few close friends, never broke the law or was especially mean to people, and even came to the local elementary school once a week to tutor students in music. And yet here he was. About to die in a fiery grave with no one to save him.

Seriously, everyone was right when they said that karma was a bitch.

Trying to preserve as much oxygen as he possibly could, he really hoped that all the kids were out of the school. One minute, he was trying to explain to them the difference between a flat and a sharp – and the next, the auditorium was engulfed in bright orange flames. Not your average Wednesday…

He reacted as quickly as any eighteen-year-old college freshman volunteer possibly could; he grabbed a bunch of elementary school kids under his arms and pulled them out towards the exit. It took him two trips to get all the kids out, but he was almost positive that he had everyone out. Just as he went back onstage to make sure that he was right, the walkway that hung above the stage came lose from the heat and crashed down onto the stage, pinning Patrick down with it. He tried desperately to get it off him, but he was trapped. The pressure on his chest made it impossible to move, to breathe, to do anything. He felt like he was going to be crushed to death. Plus, the impending flames that were moving around him weren’t helping, either.

When he realized that he really hadn’t taken a breath for almost the past minute, the panic began to set in. He was going to die alone at an elementary school crushed by a huge metal walkway. He was going to die a virgin. Oh fuck, he was… He was going to be that pathetic virgin to die alone, and the only one who’d be sad about his death would be Brendon, because he was still practically in love with Patrick. He clawed at whatever ground he felt that wasn’t on fire, kicked in the air in some vain attempt to get the twenty foot metal walkway off of him. Did anyone even know he was still in here? Did anyone even care if he was?

Patrick wasn’t ready to die. He knew that.

He felt himself begin to hyperventilate. In a matter of ten seconds, the surroundings started to get fuzzy, and a soft ache in the back of his head started to settle in. He thought he heard voices, but he figured it must have just been in his head. Laying his head - which had gotten surprisingly heavy - back down against the stage floor, the edges of his vision started to get darken. His mind started to fill with _what ifs_ and _I should’ves_. Biting down onto his lip, it was too late for that. No one cared that he was gone, and no one was going to miss him. He was going to die alone and full of regrets.

As his vision began to slip away from him, the last thing he saw above him was a tan, dark-haired guy in a teal mask, looking down at him with a concerned face. The masked stranger was saying stuff that was incomprehensible. He slipped a hand under Patrick’s head. The pressure on his chest was soon gone. And then there was nothing.

  


:: ::

  
If he was dead, this definitely wasn’t Hell. And if he was dead, there was no way he was going to heaven. Patrick groaned inwardly. He wasn’t dead. As he tried to prop himself up on his elbows, he realized he maybe should’ve opened his eyes first, as a wave of dizziness overtook him and sent him crashing back down onto…whatever he was on.

Slowly opening his eyes, he found himself eye to eye with a crotch. And not just a crotch. A skinny jean covered crotch. “Fucking…” he muttered, covering his eyes before erupting into a fit of coughs.

“Oh hey! You’re awake!” the voice above him said excitedly. Patrick looked up, and it was the same guy as before – tan, dark haired, shiny teeth boy. Which was when Patrick noticed that his very own head was laying in shiny teeth boy’s lap. Who was still wearing a mask. Patrick was pretty sure that it wasn’t Halloween, so he didn’t get it. He felt the two hands that had been cradling his head slip under his arms and help him into a sitting position. Clutching at his head, which was now throbbing, he coughed again.

“What the fuck happened?”

“I saved you,” the voice exclaimed cheerily. Someone in the background cleared their throat. “Erm. We saved you. But I did most of it. You’re kinda of cute. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Patrick looked up for the first time, and then realized that he still must be unconscious. Because this in no way was real. He smiled beside himself, trying to hold back his laughter. Facing him was three grown men in jeans and black t-shirts. Which would’ve been pretty normal. If they weren’t wearing fucking masks along with them. “And who are you?”

The guy in the green mask grinned. “You can call me Pete,” he said with a laugh. The other two rolled their eyes.

“Pete, the point of wearing masks is so that people DON’T figure out who we are,” the one to Pete’s left said. He was wearing a red and black mask, grinning and shaking his head at the same time. The one on Pete’s right, in a shiny black mask, just stayed quiet, looking back and forth from Patrick to his own feet.

“But I want him to know my name! He seems like a cool kid. Right, you won’t tell anyone my true name?” Pete asked, looking at Patrick.

Patrick just watched him incredulously. He hadn’t woken up from any dream yet, but these guys weren’t for real, in their masks and matching clothes. “Okay, so obviously I’m going to wake up from this smoke induced coma anytime soon, because there’s no way that you are real.”

Pete frowned, crossing his arms. “I’m real! I saved your life! Doesn’t that count?! Hey, you wanna be my sidekick? Fuck, that would be so awesome! And you’d be so much better looking in tights than Robin…”

The one in the red and black chuckled, shaking his head. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but it’s true.” Patrick simply moaned, dropping his head into his hands.

The quieter one walked over to Patrick, who was still in disbelief. Slowly, he crouched down next to him, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. “Hey, are you feeling alright? I’m sorry it took us so long…we – we didn’t even know you were inside,” he said softly.

Patrick just stared at him. “What’s it to you?”

Instead of the outburst he was expecting, the hero just smiled, and for a minute, Patrick strangely felt at home. “I know, it’s a little overwhelming right now. But I just want to make sure you’re okay before Pete brings you home. That okay?” He softly began to press his hands onto Patrick’s temple, his neck, his shoulders, and moved downward. When he hit Patrick’s chest, he had barely laid a finger on him when Patrick hissed as white-hot pain erupted through his abdomen, making him want to crawl into a ball. Not a great idea – only hurt more.

“Ahh, there we go,” he whispered, a new look on his face. Even though Patrick was now in pain, there was something comforting about this random stranger’s hands being all over him. He lifted Patrick’s t-shirt up gingerly, where he found a mottling of bruises in shapes and colors. “Your ribs are broken, and you most likely have internal bleeding.”

The calmness in his voice was pretty unsettling. He was saying that like it was no big deal. “ _Oh yeah, I went and saw that new movie with Tom Cruise the other day. It sucked. And I have to go shopping for bananas later. Oh, by the way, all your ribs are broken and your organs are probably pulp. But it’s no biggie…”_

But before Patrick could respond, there was a flash of light, and a breeze of cool air. When he looked down again, everything was normal. No bruises, nothing jutting out, no pain. Patrick looked up at him, his eyes wide. That couldn’t have just happened. The masked young man was smiling again, his hand lingering over Patrick’s stomach for a second. He took his fingers off one by one, making a strained breath. When he noticed Patrick was watching him warily, he jumped back slightly and laughed a bit.

“Good as new. Just – just before you go, what you did today was very heroic. I hope you know that. You saved those kids lives at risk of your own. I – I know a lot of people are going to be very proud of you,” he whispered, grabbing onto and squeezing Patrick’s shoulder with a shaking hand before he stood up.

Patrick frowned, opening his mouth to say something back to him, but before he could, Pete was behind him with an outstretched hand. Patrick looked at it, before he sighed and grabbed onto it, letting himself be saved for once.

 **.brendon &spencer.**  
Biting nails was NOT a nervous habit. Everyone who was anyone knew that. Spencer just liked the taste of his nails. In fact, he liked them so much that he was going to chew on his whole hand until there were no nails left. Those nails were so delicious…

When he felt his teeth bite down the skin on his hand, he put his twitching hands in his lap and tried not to look at his cell phone or the door. He wasn’t nervous at all. He wasn’t trying to distract himself from the absence of some roommate who hadn’t shown up yet and could possibly be in some other sort of peril. Spencer never worried about this so-called roommate. Not in the least bit. Not even when he heard that a group of superheroes had saved Patrick from burning to death in a building.

He was just hungry. And the only thing he could find to eat was his fingernails. Nothing strange about that. When he realized that his hands had begun to pull at the threads of his t-shirt, he got up from the chair, making circles around the counter.

He needed Ryan here. On any day of the year, why did Ryan have to pick _today_ to actually go to class? Ryan could be here right now, telling him about some horrible date that he’d gone on or some idiot that had come into the bookstore, and Spencer would have to chill the fuck out. Not like he had really had a choice in the matter.

On his fifth trip around the island in the kitchen, he realized he needed something to take his mind off of was happening. He could go for a walk, he read a book, he could clean the kitchen…

Or he could answer his now vibrating cell phone. Finally. He was so fucking worried.

“Hello?!” he answered, jumping out of his seat.

“Hi, it’s me. Is Ryan home?” the voice said in a hushed tone.

“No.”

“And Patrick’s asleep?”

“Yes, you can come in, please…” Spencer pleaded. Fuck trying to sound calm. Desperation was the new sex appeal. Before he could say anything else, the door quickly opened and closed, and an unmasked harried looking hero ran in.

Breathing heavily, he dropped the mask that was clutched in his hands onto the table in the kitchen. He stood there for a moment, his back turned to Spencer. Finally, Spencer walked up to him and cautiously placed a hand on his neck. Without a word, he collapsed onto Spencer, who stumbled slightly before steadying him back onto his feet. Spencer, who was desperately trying to figure out what was wrong – was he hurt, should Spencer bring him to see Pete, what had happened – he heard Brendon let out a sob. Which was then that he realized Brendon wasn’t hurt. At least not physically.

“Hey, everything’s all right. Patrick’s going to be fine, you’re all right, the kids in the school were okay. Nobody got hurt. You did awesome,” Spencer whispered reassuringly, pulling him into a hug and running a hand through the messy mop of dark hair. At these moments, Spencer hated the fact that Brendon was a superhero. When he would come back from an assignment, so emotionally broken and raw…and Spencer felt like he couldn’t pick up the pieces.

Brendon dipped his head onto Spencer’s shoulder, the sobs continuing to rack through his trembling body. “It – it was just so hard, Spence. I – I almost lost it out there,” he mumbled, wrapping his fingers in Spencer’s shirt, as if he was scared that Spencer was going to walk away from him and leave him alone. “When we went to the fire, it was just supposed to be that…no one said that there was going to be someone trapped inside. And – and then we go in, and it’s Patrick! I didn’t even know that he volunteered there. He was going to die, and I don’t know everything about him yet!”

Spencer didn’t know what to say to that. When he had heard about what happened to Patrick, he was so distraught he had dropped the phone. He couldn’t imagine being one of the people to see it firsthand. He tried to put himself in Brendon’s place – his best friend trapped. Spencer began picturing Ryan as Patrick. A chill ran down his spine as he tried to get the thought out of his head. “It’s okay,” he mumbled reassuringly again, knowing it was a lie.

“No, no it’s not okay!” Brendon exclaimed, pushing away from Spencer angrily. He closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face and through his hair. “Fuck, what the fuck am I doing out there?” he said to himself, a bitter laugh rising through his voice. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I can’t even handle my own emotions, how the fuck am I supposed to save other people?! It’s not like this is the first time this has happened! You of all people know that!”

Spencer stood there for a moment dumbly, surprised by the sudden outburst. He opened his mouth to try to give loads of bullshit reassurances that he and Brendon both knew were meaningless lies, but he stopped. It wasn’t the best time to go back into the past, especially with the frenzied state that Brendon was in currently.

Instead, he grabbed onto Brendon’s hand and led him into the room that they shared. Pushing Brendon down onto the bed, he began to rummage through the drawers and closet to pull out clothes for him to wear.

“Get changed. In case Ryan’s early,” he said, trying to take necessary precautions. The last thing that Brendon needed today was to have the ‘ _Oh hey, guess what? I’m actually a superhero!’_ talk with someone. And Ryan, of all people. Before he walked out of the room. “I’ll be out there if you still want to talk.” _I’m always there_ is what was lingering on his lips, but instead he closed the door, leaning against it for a second.

 

:: ::

Sitting at the table he had been at what seemed like hours ago, but in reality had been just a few minutes, Spencer dropped his head into his hands. He really was a bad boyfriend. And an even shittier friend at that. To think that he couldn’t even comfort Brendon in the right way said a lot about their relationship. There had been a reason why he was the first person that Brendon told about being a hero. In fact, Brendon was the first of all the heroes to tell a human willingly. All the others – it had come after being discovered. Brendon had chosen to tell Spencer the truth.

So what made him so special that Brendon would trust him with this life-changing secret? Honestly, Spencer still didn’t understand… When he had asked Brendon why he chose him – why not Patrick (who was his best friend, or Ryan for that reason…) Brendon had sighed and said to him “They may be closer in certain way, but I trust you more than anyone. I know you’d never tell this to anyone. That’s why I chose you to tell, and I know I made the right choice.”

Spencer wasn’t so sure that was still true. Maybe if he had told Patrick or Ryan, he wouldn’t have been hurt as much. Spencer and Brendon most likely would never have gotten together, and it just would’ve prevented a lot of mess…

“Hi,” Brendon said meekly, no longer in his uniform but dressed in a different pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. He stood there for a minute awkwardly, frowning and twisting the hem of his shirt in the fingers. “Are you – um – are you mad at me?”

Spencer couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Of course not. Why would you think so?” He motioned for Brendon to come and sit in the seat next to him.

Glaring at the seat like it was going to eat him, Brendon slowly went and sat in it, but not before moving it a foot away from Spencer.

“Brendon, what’s the matter?” Spencer asked concerned, moving his chair closer to Brendon.

Dropping his head, Brendon blushed. “I’m – I’m not a good hero, Spencer. I’m not good at anything. I can’t control myself or my emotions, I can’t carry on a relationship without verbally attacking someone, I’m not normal. It’s embarrassing. Here I am, supposed to be saving the world from all sorts of evil, but I can’t even manage to see when the person who actually gives a fuck about me is trying to help. You shouldn’t have to put up with me,” he said softly, staring down at his hands folded in his lap.

“Bren, everyone is allowed to have a bad day. Even superheroes. Don’t think for a second that because you had a tough day that that makes you any less of a hero. It doesn’t, because you’ve saved countless lives. And forget about this fight between you and I. I already have. I realized what I signed up for when I learned about your secret identity or whatever. And I don’t care, because I love you. Not your superhero self or your powers. I love **_you_** – Brendon Urie - and I’ll never stop,” Spencer admitted strongly, pointing at finger at him.

This was why Brendon picked him, he realized. Because they completed one another. When one of them fell apart, the other one was there to pick up the pieces. And Spencer couldn’t imagine it any other way. Brendon smiled. “You’re such a girl,” he teased before climbed on top of Spencer, kissing him softly on the lips.

 **.jon.**  
“Alright guys, this is seriously getting a little ridiculous. Every time I come home, you two are either naked or on your way to getting naked. Can we set some ground rules here?” Jon sighed as he walked into the house that a large majority of the heroes lived in. He pulled off his mask before he tried to physically separate Gabe and William, who were on the couch, a tangle of long limbs.

Gabe laughed heartily. “Aw, come on Jonny Boy. There’s no reason to be bitter. Just because you want to get in the action doesn’t call for negativity. All you have to do is ask, and I’ll be more than happy to oblige.” He grabbed onto Jon’s forearm and began to pull him between himself and William.

“Why are you trying to embarrass him like that? Because he has certain moral standards that you don’t possess? You’re such a fourteen year old,” William said back, but with a lightness in his voice that was easy to tell that he wasn’t completely serious.

“I know you are, but what am I?” Gabe stuck his tongue out at William, but eventually let go of Jon.

Jon rolled his eyes, laughing to himself as he walked to his room and changed into normal clothes. He approached Mark, who was sitting in front of the computers as always. “Hi Mark. Hey, is there anyway we could, you know, forcibly separate those two? Maybe insert magnets into their lips so when they try to go at it they’ll just repel one another?”

Mark smiled, looking over his shoulder at Gabe, who had William wrapped around his waist and was carrying him into his bedroom before slamming the door. “I really can’t help you there…”

“I heard that, Jon! Watch your mouth or I’ll turn the rest of your life into complete suffering…” William shouted from behind the closed door.

With a laugh, Mark turned back towards the computer. “I would listen to him. Especially since he can literally do that. Or into one of happiness, lust, anger…you name it, he’ll do it. Or he’ll have Gabe go ‘fangs up’ on you…Do you happen to have the footage from the fire? I just want to check it out for any abnormalities.”

“Yeah, sure. Have at it,” Jon replied, pulling the disc out from the back of his pocket. “Where’s everyone else?”

Mark pushed it into the CD drive. “Uh, Alex and Ryland have class, Frank is at work, and Mikey went down to the electronic store to buy something.”

“For you or for him?”

For that answer, Mark actually turned around, raising one of his eyebrows. “You think I would actually buy my gear at some place like Best Buy? It was for him. I think he was looking for a new iPod…” Jon laughed at that as Mark spun back around in his seat. “Brendon went home?”

“Yeah, he was a little shaky throughout the whole trip. Especially when we got there. The guy trapped in the auditorium was one of his other roommates,” Jon explained, opening the fridge and trying to find a soda, but having no luck. It figured.

“Are you serious? Is Brendon okay?” Mark asked, stopping typing for a moment.

Jon nodded, closing the fridge and walking over to take the seat next to Mark. “He’ll be okay. Spencer will take good care of him,” he replied, think of how worried Spencer always was about Brendon’s well being. It was endearing, almost cute. Not that he wanted someone to worry about him constantly or anything, but it would be nice to have someone to come home to and be happy to see him. After he Cassie left him, he was so confused as to what he wanted in life. He thought that Cassie had been ‘the one’. But it was clear that there was something that didn’t work out in their relationship. Otherwise, they’d still be together.

Mark let a small gasp out, pulling Jon from his daydream. “No,” he whispered, pushing himself away from the computer, frozen in place.

“What’s wrong?” Jon asked, slightly concerned. He’d never seen Mark like this. Then again, he’d never seen Mark express any real emotion. He’d asked Pete about it one day, but Pete got really mad and yelled at him, told him to mind his own business.

The tape was paused in one spot, and Mark rolled his shoulders, taking a deep breath. He clicked the keyboard a few times before the screen enhanced itself. On the screen by the electrical systems was a young man. As Jon looked at it, the face started to become more familiar.

“Whoa, isn’t that-”

“It’s Tom - Tom DeLonge. The same Tom who I haven’t heard from in almost year after Maja captured him and stole my powers. I thought he was dead… when in reality, he just switched teams,” Mark mumbled, before the tape began to play again. It showed Tom screwing around with the electrical system, before it overloaded, he disappeared, and the screen was completely engulfed in flames. “I’d heard the rumors about him working with Maja, but I just thought it was her trying to get to us… I should’ve listened.”

Jon looked from the screen to Mark, who sat there silently, his chin resting in his hand. He hadn’t known the whole back story to ‘The Mark and Tom Show’. Now, he kind of wished he had. He’d heard bits and pieces of it that pretty much summed up that Mark and Tom were the Batman and Robin of this time. No wonder why Mark was so reserved now. He had been on a fruitless search for his missing best friend for a year, and come to find out, Tom had actually turned evil.

“That’s weird,” Mark mumbled, pausing the tape again. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck. Jon watched him intently, and realized that just like that, the brief show of emotion was over. It was like Tom DeLonge had never even shown up on the screen.

Slowly he leaned over to get a better look at the screen. “I take it you tried to absorb the flames when you got there?” Mark asked Jon.

“Our main concern was getting Patrick out alive, but once Pete had gotten him out, yeah. Except, it was kinda weird…” Jon thought out loud, remembering what had actually happened.

“What?”

“Well, as soon as I started to absorb the flames, the sprinklers came on. Which was why I couldn’t figure out why it took that long…” They had estimated Patrick had been inside for a good ten minutes before they got there, and then it was another few minutes for Pete to get him out safely. So when the sprinklers came on out of nowhere, Jon didn’t understand, or just wondered if the school’s sprinkler system sucked.

“It wasn’t the sprinkler system,” Mark answered quietly, putting the video on again, but this time in slow motion. He stepped out of the chair and got closer to the screen. “There’s Brendon, trying to control the flames through diverting the oxygen,” he started, signaling to a black speeding blur across the screen. “And then this is right before you got the fire under control,” he pointed out, motioning to Jon’s figure on the screen. “Here’s the sprinkler system. And here’s the water.”

Jon couldn’t believe what he just saw. “The water isn’t coming from the sprinklers.” He had automatically assumed that the water coming down from the sky was from the sprinkler system. But clearly from the tape, the sprinklers weren’t on.

“It’s raining inside,” Mark mumbled, tapping a few keys before the picture became clearer and zoomed in. Around the sprinkler, there was a collection of what looked like fog. It was a _**cloud**_.

After minutes of complete silence, Jon shifted in his seat. “Alright. So. Why the fuck was it raining inside?”

Mark shrugged, leaning back in the chair. “My guess? Someone made it. There was someone at the school with power over the weather, and sensed that they were needed.” He continued to watch the tape again, letting a few minutes roll on the tape. “I wonder…” he muttered under his breath, before he clicked a few keys and the image changed to a different location.

“What are you thinking?” Jon asked, pulling his chair closer to Mark’s. This was huge. It meant that there was somebody else around with… _abilities_. Except they were going to have to persuade them to join the good guys before Maja got to them. It was going to be like when they found Alex and Ryland, all over again.

Mark didn’t say anything for a moment before he let out a yell. “Yes!” he cried, jabbing the pause button with such force Jon almost jumped back. “Have you, by any chance, met him before? I believe he’s the weather master we’re looking for…”

Jon felt his jaw drop open. It couldn’t be. There was no fucking way. Not after everything he’d heard and seen. It wasn’t possible…

“I take it from your lack of response that you do know him,” Mark mused softly.

Jon swallowed, trying to get rid of the dryness that had suddenly appeared in his throat. “It’s – it’s Brendon’s other roommate Ryan. The one Brendon is terrified of telling about him. Who’s expressed on multiple occasions his hatred for us so-called ‘freaks’.”

 **.gabe &william.**  
When William opened his eyes, seemingly having dozed off after Gabe and he had finished, he found that he was alone in the cold bed. Which wasn’t the way it had been when he had closed his eyes. But was often how he found himself in the morning.

Propping himself up on his elbows, he looked around the room, seeing that the last few rays of sunlight were coming through the blinds. On the other side of the room, he found Gabe, throwing on his clothes as quietly as possible.

“What are you doing?” he asked quietly, cocking his head and smiling lazily.

Gabe turned around nonchalantly. “Oh, you’re finally awake, Sleeping Beauty.” He zipped up his jeans before coming to sit on the edge of the bed where William was. Leaning over, he pressed a kiss again William’s temple, pushing a few strands of his hair behind his ear. “I gotta run.”

William’s heart sank. Although he realized that he should’ve been expecting this. When wasn’t Gabe leaving for something better? Once the sex had ended, William must have gotten boring, so Gabe needed to amuse himself with other people. “What? Why?” William asked, entwining his hand with Gabe’s.

“Can’t just sit here waiting for the party to come to me. Gotta go find it myself,” Gabe said with a bit of a snort. He grinned before letting go of William’s hand to pull on his shirt. If it wasn’t him on the other end getting hurt, William would’ve thought that that type of cockiness was amusing, almost endearing.

“Where?”

Gabe sighed, the grin falling off his face. “Fuck, Bill. I didn’t sign up to play 20 questions with you. Out, does it really matter?”

“Stop it, Gabe. I mean it. Where are you going tonight?” William repeated, desperately trying to keep the conviction in his voice.

“I’m going to meet Barakat and Gaskarth for drinks. I told you that, remember?” he said, his tone coming up to match William’s.

“And the reason for these drinks?” With a sigh, William crossed his arms. This repeated itself every night. The people and places and things changed, but the fact that Gabe could never stay remained true. Every time it happened, William tried to lie to himself that maybe, just maybe this time he could change Gabe and make him stay.

Gabe stopped, finally groaning. “You know, just some old friends catching up with on another. I don’t know why you have such a problem with it, William.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, William turned away from him. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s your consistently fucking lame excuses? ‘Oh, we’re just old friends.’ When you told me about it the other day, Gabe, you told me you had just met them! So it’s either that you’re lying to me, or you’re actually consorting with senior citizens!” he exclaimed, climbing out of the bed with the sheet wrapped around him.

“Who the fuck gives you the right to question what I do?” Gabe spat back, jumping up from the bed.

“You did!” William turned sharply, sending him a glare.

“When?!”

“When you decided that we should continue sleeping together! So now we’re in some dysfunctional relationship in that all we do is fight and fuck, constantly! But apparently that’s what you do with everyone!” William screamed back, holding the sheet around him with one hand, waving the other one frantically.

Gabe didn’t say anything. His expression changed, turning to a bit of a frown. With a slump of his shoulders, he asked quietly “What do you want from me, William?” throwing up his hands in defeat.

Pulling the sheet around him tighter, suddenly feeling very exposed, William sat back down on the corner of the bed. “I want to know what we’re doing here, Gabe. I want to know what exactly I mean to you.”

With a genuine smile, Gabe sighed, his shoulders collapsing. He crawled across the mattress to pull William backwards into his arms. “Everything, Bilvy. You mean everything to me.” He ran his fingers through William’s hair, whispering over and over how much he meant to him, causing the smile on William’s face to grow exceedingly. This was why William could never hold it together; could never stand on his own two feet when he tried to stand up to Gabe. And as he laid there, wrapped in Gabe’s arms while he played with strands of William’s hair…he wondered why it couldn’t always be like this. But then he realized that there was two sides to Gabe Saporta.

There was the (wo)manizing, I’ll-fuck-anything-that-moves Gabe, and then there was the Gabe that William thought may actually love him. And that was the part the scared William. For no matter what Gabe did or how he treated William, that part of him always won William’s heart. Maybe it was his powers that craved the attention, or maybe it was the fact that he was a sucker for anyone who would actually pay attention to him. Because as he watched Gabe walk out the door a few minutes later, knowing he wouldn’t be back until later tomorrow morning, smelling like sweat and sex, he wasn’t sure how much more his heart could handle. But honestly, he knew it really wouldn’t matter.

**.ryan.**   
_Run. Go. Get the fuck out of there._

The fact that he could still hear his thoughts screaming at him after he was long gone from the fire at the school, clearly getting the fuck out of there made him feel sick. They were a constant reminder. Of who he was – and more often than not – who he _wasn’t_. Because he sure as fuck wasn’t normal. He dropped listlessly onto the couch of the Starbucks he had wandered into, and was contemplating walking up to the counter to buy a drink from the barista – who was currently smiling _at him._ Ryan looked around, as if he was trying to find who the guy behind the counter was actually looking at. But when he looked back up, the guy was gone, off using the blender to make who knows what.

Laying his head back against the couch, his head was pounding. “Can’t even fucking control myself,” he muttered under his breath. No matter how many times he told himself, no matter what he told himself the costs were going to be, no matter how evil he told himself everyone thought he was – he couldn’t stop trying to save people. Because even though after his parents tried sent him to a special camp every summer just for people like him, just for people who were _different in his special way_ , it never worked. And he could never be normal. After almost catching their entire house in a tornado, his parents sweetly told him that it would be best if he left. So this – this horrible **gift** that everyone called it? It had lost him his entire family, which was what he told himself every day that he ached to tell Brendon, Patrick, and Spencer who – _what he was_. He was too weak. Couldn’t control his powers enough to stay in his family, couldn’t stop trying to show off and do good and save people, couldn’t work up the nerve to tell his friends the truth. But he couldn’t lose them. Not again. He was too selfish. So when Brendon brought up heroes, Ryan would swallow his fear and tear them apart, each word tearing into him.

“Hi,” someone said from beside him. Ryan opened one eye, annoyed at who the fuck would try to bother him at this point. He had learned the way of repelling people, turning them away so no one ever got too close. It worked well enough, because by no one getting close enough to him, he never had the chance to hurt him. Granted, he never had the chance to experience _life_ , but it was worth it. He could live his life without anyone. Well, except for the others.

It was the barista from before, smiling and holding out a paper cup wrapped in a paper sleeve. With messy hair and scruff that spoke volumes about who this man was – and why he should not be interested in _RYAN ROSS_ \- Ryan almost felt himself start to look around again, because he was almost positive that his barista had the wrong guy. Quickly, though, the barista explained. “I know you didn’t order anything. But you look like you’re having a rough day. So here, hopefully this can perk you up. My treat,” he said, holding the cup out a little further.

Ryan was still speechless. This wasn’t – this shouldn’t – this shouldn’t be happening to him. A guy, and an extremely attractive one at that, was giving him free coffee. For no reason. For just being here. “I’m…” he started, before reaching out to grab the cup, his eyes not leaving barista, who was still smiling. “What is it?”

“Soy chai latte. It’s my favorite drink, except for, you know, when I’m in desperate need of some caffeine,” he said with a shrug. Ryan looked at it warily, then back at the barista. This must’ve been some kind of practically joke or he was being set up or some shit like that. Because there was no fucking way that the cutest barista at Starbucks was trying to give him his favorite drink for free. Which _just happened_ to be this guy’s favorite?

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I should…” Ryan finally said, regretfully putting the latte down on the table.

The barista raised an eyebrow, starting to chuckle. “Should what? Accept a free drink from your local friendly Starbucks worker? Why not? I made it right, scout’s promise…”

Ryan resisted the urge to smile – _don’t give yourself away_ – and instead chose to get to his feet for an easy escape. “It’s just a little strange. Things like this don’t happen to me. Attractive guys giving me free things… So thanks, but no thanks.” When he saw the barista full-out grin, he realized what he had said and felt his entire face go aflame. Groaning, he ran a hand through his hair, to which the barista started to chuckle at.

“You’re extremely amusing.”

“Fuck off,” Ryan said lightly.

“At least keep the drink. I’ll have to throw it out if you don’t…” With a wink, the barista walked back behind the counter. Ryan glared at the drink on the table, before grabbing it with a huff and walking back out into the chilly air. A few steps away, he finally took a sip. _At least creepy barista guy has good taste_ , he thought to himself. But as he lowered the cup from his lips, he frowned, suddenly understanding Creepy Barista Guy’s adamance for him to take the drink…

 _ **-jon 392.564.6703**_ was scrawled across the paper sleeve. Suddenly feeling sick to his stomach, Ryan walked to the nearest trash can. He dumped the drink in the garbage, and threw the cup in after, but not before slipping the sleeve off of it. As he stared at it, fingers itching to shove it into his pocket, he knew that he couldn’t. There was a reason why he was supposed to be alone. He needed to protect everyone else from himself. He needed to protect Jon from what he didn’t even understand. It was better for everyone that way.

He forced himself to toss it into the trash.

 **.patrick &pete.**  
“Remind me again how you managed to climb into my window?” Patrick asked in a flat, quiet voice, crossing his arms. It was a little strange how things like this didn’t really faze Patrick at this point. Because over the past week since the fire, he had seen Pete at least six times a day. And every day, in some strange place (work, school, his mother’s house, his dentist), Pete came forth to declare his undying love for Patrick. And to be expected, Patrick had simply walked away every time, telling Pete to open his eyes and realize who he was talking to.

Pete grinned. “Patrick, when will you get it through your head that I’m a FUCKING SUPERHERO? I can do whatever I want!” He laughed, jumping up and down a bit.

Laying back against his pillows, Patrick smiled a bit, laughing softly. From here, he could see Pete’s eyes physically light up at that. The feeling was strange – he hated the fact that Pete was slowly breaking him down, but he had to admit… he kind of liked it too. It was like the flirting he had done – or at least observed – in middle school. Where fights and anger and pushing people into lockers was just another language for ‘I WANT TO BEAR YOUR FIRST BORN’.

“Then you can close the window so I can go back to sleep. And keep your voice down unless you want to wake up Brendon and the others…” Patrick muttered teasingly, pulling the blanket back over him and rolling over.

There was a beat of silence. “You’re not making me leave?” a small voice asked, hopefulness shining through. Pulling the blankets down from over his head, Patrick found himself now face-to-face with Pete, who was sitting next to his bed, a strange expression on his face. “Every time I’ve pulled something like this, you flip me off, tell me fuck off, insult yourself, anything… What gives?”

Patrick shrugged from under the blankets, because honestly? He didn’t know the answer to that question either. “Your enthusiasm is endearing, what can I say?” Pete laughed softly, and for the first time, Patrick thought he might actually be seeing the real Pete. No superhero, no forced bravado, nothing of the sort. Just Pete. “But what gives with you? Why are you wasting all your time on me?”

Without a word, Pete was suddenly a flurry of motion and a blur of limbs. Before Patrick could stop him, Pete was lying on the blanket next to him, noses separated by only a few inches. Patrick’s fingers were tingling by his side, itching to reach up and pull the mask off of him. “Because I like you. What other reason do you need?” Pete said quietly. In so few words, Patrick thought that may’ve been the nicest thing someone had said to him. Feeling himself being to blush, he tore his eyes away from Pete. He suddenly felt very exposed, very young.

“You can take it off, if you want…”

Patrick was about to ask him _what the fuck_ when he felt warm hands encircle his own. His breath caught in his throat as Pete guided their hands up to his face, letting Patrick’s fall just on the borders of his mask.

“I – I can’t,” Patrick whispered, his voice shaking. Not that he was even thinking about the troubles it could cause for Pete – what if he was seen, what if someone use Patrick to discover who Pete really was, what if… - Patrick was suddenly scared to do it. Something like this, it was intimate and close. It showed how much that Pete already trusted him. And he wasn’t sure he was ready for all that trust.

Smiling softly, Pete rolled his eyes. “I want you to. Please?”

Closing his mouth so that any involuntary vocal noises wouldn’t be let out, Patrick swallowed, slipping his thumbs along Pete’s cheekbones, loosening the mask. Before he could turn back and stop himself, the mask was lying curled up in his hands, and he was no longer staring at Pete the superhero. Pete ran his thumb over Patrick’s fingers that were clutching the mask for dear life.

“I’m happy that it was you…” Pete whispered into Patrick’s ear.

And Patrick couldn’t think of a single reason to disagree with him.  
 **.jon &ryan.**  
Each day - telling himself that it was okay to be who he was, it was okay to try to be happy, it was okay to try to live – Ryan found it became harder to stay true to who he was. Lying to everyone, including himself… he found that he treaded dangerously close to losing yourself in the process. So the best way to avoid it was to simply cut himself off completely. Now at the point where he only went home to sleep, spending countless hours at quad or the campus bookstore or simply wandering until he found somewhere that he could be faceless and nameless, Ryan wondered if maybe it was better this way.

Currently curled up in one of the overstuffed leather chairs in the back of the book store, a worn copy of one of Chuck Pahlahniuk’s books under his arm, he closed his eyes, letting the sunlight wash over him in warmth. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe fate gave him this power as a sign that he wasn’t supposed to be close to anyone, wasn’t supposed to be happy. He could be okay with that.

…

Fuck that, he was miserable. Everyday that he woke up and found one his roommates wandering around the kitchens, asking how he was doing and if there was anything wrong because he was never home, his voice was begging to spill his secrets. To just have someone that would be there for him and understand. But that was naïve. Because if Ryan’s family hated him so much, clearly the others wouldn’t be nearly as forgiving. And not a day went by that Ryan didn’t regret throwing that cup holder in the garbage. Sometimes, in a dazed and confused wander through the city, he would find himself at the Starbucks, hoping that just maybe he’d coincidentally run into Jon again.

No luck.

Fingering the pages of the book, he that wondered if he died if anyone would actually miss him. It was a touch too morbid for his liking, but he couldn’t help it. Would anyone feel a loss without him? He didn’t expect anyone too…

“No wonder you always look so depressed. Pahlahniuk’s a fucked up writer. He’ll make you gloomier than Eeyore…” a familiar voice said, Ryan able to hear the smile in it.

“For your information, his writing is not depressing. It simply goes beyond the normal prose that we’re accustomed to. He stretches boundaries, does what people says he shouldn’t… it’s why I like him so much. I like to think we’re kindred spirits,” Ryan informed his mystery visitor informatively without looking up. When he did, he found Jon perched on the armrest of the other chair, smiling and looking as stunning as ever. He was even wearing flip-flops. If it was possible, Ryan might’ve already died. “How’d you know where I was?” Ryan asked, attempting to keep his voice at a normal decibel and tucking his book into the side of the chair.

Jon shrugged. “I have my ways. Just because you don’t see me all those days you come into the Starbucks doesn’t mean that I’m not there…”

Feeling his cheeks burning, Ryan smiled, a genuine laugh escaping from his mouth. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. I’ve never had such an awkwardly adorable stalker before. It’s refreshing,” Jon said, sliding backwards into the chair. “Which reminds me. Why haven’t you just called me yet if you insist on stalking me?”

“I threw your number out,” Ryan admitted softly, suddenly realizing how bad that sounded. Not that he ever forgot how bad he felt. Because every day that he wandered into the Starbucks, hoping to see Jon? Yeah, it was pathetically bad.

Jon raised an eyebrow questioningly. “So let me get this straight. You threw out a voluntary branch of friendship – or perhaps even more – on my part, and yet you’re now stalking me? Strange priorities there, my friend,” he chuckled, shaking his head.

Ryan rolled his eyes, a smile still being able to find its way to his lips. “I’m not stalking you. Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

With a grin, Jon shot forward. “Alright, fine. Then we’ll just skip the awkward first phone call and go for the next event. Go on a date with me?”

Letting out a choked laugh, Ryan felt something bubbling up inside him. He hadn’t felt like this is such a long time. It was strange… new. It was nice. “Why? You don’t know me. You don’t even know my name.”

“Ryan Ross.” When Ryan paled, Jon held up his hands as a sign of innocence. “I know, that sounds creepy. But one of the guy I work with is in your Comparative Lit class, so… I got my details from him. But still.”

He couldn’t believe it. He had only seen this guy twice, acted like a complete spaz in both meetings, and probably made a fool of himself in every single way. And yet Jon asked him on a date. “I don’t even know you,” Ryan admitted softly. You don’t know me, he thought sadly.

As he stood up, Jon offered his hand to Ryan. “That’s okay. You can get to know me on the date I’m now taking you on. Because considering your vehement lack of refusal, I’m taking it that you’re accepting?”

Ryan stared at the outstretched hand. It was such a simple gesture and yet it meant so much. It could be the end. The end of being alone, the end of feeling like he was nothing, the end of his loneliness. He wanted to turn and run so bad. Because just like Jon had grown some strange connection to him over two meetings, Ryan felt a newfound affection for Jon. He couldn’t bear to think of hurting him. He didn’t want to be the cause of it. He licked his lips, attempting to swallow the dry mouth he currently had found himself with. It was all wrong, and he knew it. Nothing worked out for Ryan, because Ryan was wrong.

But being alone? It was too painful.

So he grabbed onto Jon’s hand and held on tight.

  
 **.brendon.**  
Five years ago, if someone told Brendon Urie that he would be one of the only people who could save his town from death and destruction and all that jazz, he probably would’ve thought they were on drugs. He would’ve been totally cool with them think that and would’ve imagined himself as the most awesome superhero that ever walked the planet. But seriously. Never in a million years did he imagine himself actually doing it. Because honestly, being a superhero meant that you were cool. And if there was one thing that Brendon Urie was not – it was cool.

Growing up Mormon kind of puts that stamp of uncoolness right on your forehead. Kids seemed to have the notion that your father has seven other wives hiding in the basement whenever they come over to play. And being friends with Patrick, Ryan and Spencer never really helped him in that department either. He’d never trade them for the anything in the world, but they were the epitome of high school outcasts. Patrick was a comic book nerd, Spencer was a band geek, Ryan was the kid everyone knew was gay but who had refused to come out, and Brendon was… well, Brendon was Brendon. That was pretty much saying enough about him.

Thinking back to that point – when he was sure he was going to marry Patrick and adopt lots of Asian babies who would grow up to be musical prodigies, when he thought Ryan and Spencer were soulmates, when everything still sorta made sense – being in this point now was mind-boggling. Just thinking about the fact that he had single-handedly stopped Joe from overrunning the entire city park with his special version of a ‘Trohman man eating plant’ was fucking nuts. Things like that weren’t supposed to happen to guys like Brendon.

But then again, guys like Brendon weren’t supposed to fall in love. It just never worked out on the basis that they were too quirky, or too different, or just too them. They were supposed to wander awkwardly through relationships until maybe they stumbled into a mildly comfortable one with someone who could at least tolerate them. And that would be it. Not me, he thought to himself, as he buried his face deeper into Spencer’s shoulder, who in turn mumbled in his sleep. With a smile, he closed his eyes. If he could find love, then yeah, he could definitely be a fucking awesome superhero.

 **.maja.**  
Maja sat in the chair, drumming her expertly manicured fingers on the table. She looked to Hayley, Vicky and Nate, who were wrapped around one another on the couch, Vicky slowly running her hand through Nate’s short hair while Hayley propped her legs up on his lap. Joe sat in one of the darker corners, smoking whatever he had pulled up from the ground last. Tom, Conrad, and Butcher sat across from her at the table, watching her every move.

“We need to let them know that we mean business. Send them some sort of signal or wake up call,” she mused finally, leaning back. Tom and Conrad looked at each other, while Butcher simply shrugged. Maja rolled her eyes, groaning. “You are all pathetic.”

Getting to her feet, she began to pace. This group of heroes was incredibly stupid, she had come to conclude. However, looking over her shoulder, she realized that what she was working with wasn’t much better, either. They could barely think on their own, let alone come up with a plan. She needed to come up with something that would effectively wipe them out, one by one without much effort. Otherwise, there was no hope for her and this motley crew.

Capturing one of the heroes and turning him to ‘the dark side’ was difficult in the beginning, but in the end, it had all come together. They hadn’t a clue what had happened to DeLonge yet, and hadn’t even begun to piece together what was coming into play for the future. Glancing over at DeLonge, who looked back at her with a smile, she realized that this was a good start. That was one of the best decisions she had ever made. The heroes not only lost a man with DeLonge, but Hoppus fell apart after losing him. Well, after losing DeLonge, and his own powers, of course. Maja liked watching things fall apart at the seams. Maybe that was why she liked what she did so much. All the destruction and killing. In doing it, she got to watch creation in reverse.

It was enjoyable to watch these grown adults go around scrambling to put together the bits and pieces of their lives they still had. To witness Hoppus and his cohorts try to play cops and robbers… when they didn’t even know what they were getting themselves into. It made her day a little better. Maja sighed, trying to formulate some sort of plan. Bombs and fire had already proven to be ineffective, as they clearly didn’t get it after the burning of the elementary school. And involving the public wasn’t big enough. Besides, that was coming later. No, she’d have to attack the foundation…

She turned back to the others, a plan slowly coming together in her head. “Our new additions? Are they ready for unveiling yet?”

“Bob seems to be fine. It’s the other one we can’t break. No matter how many time Butcher goes into his mind and tries to break him down, nothing happens,” Conrad explained, worry etched across his brow, as if he was scared that Maja would disapprove of the answer.

Maja waved a hand at them, tsking the answer. “Don’t worry about Gerard. If we can’t break him forcefully, there are other methods of persuasion, you know. He will join us, whether he wants to or not.” Sitting back down at the table, she laughed. This would definitely work. It would show those heroes that no one says no to Maja Ivarsson.

“Now, here’s what we’re going to do…”

**.alex &ryland.**   
_Bodies. Piles and piles of dead bodies. Faces contorted in pain, eyes glazed over, mouths jarred open in silent, unanswered screams for mercy. Dark, rusty splotches covering the skin and the clothes of the bodies, seeping out into stagnant puddles._

_The street lights were still working, the car engines still running in the road. But nothing was moving. The drivers were dead behind the wheels. The street walkers lay on the sidewalks, legs bent at awkward angles from dropping._

_Everything else was alive and moving. Everything except for the people. They had almost made it. Almost made it back to their families, to their loved ones, to their homes. To protection from this. They were so close. Laying limply on top of each other, people reaching out for one another, as if in comfort. Their hands locked in tremor, clasped around strangers, to protect them from the pain._

_There had been no warning, no chance for escape or preparation. It was so unexpected, hitting like a suckerpunch. There had been no mercy, no pity, and no compassion. At the end of street, there stood a lone figure, slowly approaching. As it came closer, it was clearer that it was Maja herself, grinning as she stepped over the dead bodies, her stilettos clacking the pavement. She had done this. Caused all of this destruction. And she couldn’t have been prouder. From even the distance away, he could see the grin behind her lengths of blond hair._

_“Isn’t it beautiful, Alexandro? Take a look around you,” she began motioning to the scene that was around them. Alex stopped, suddenly realizing that he was now part of this scene. “This is what we could do. You and I together. Take it all in. It’s gorgeous…” Maja said as she closed her eyes._

_“I’m dreaming, right?” Alex asked, taking a step forward, trying not to look at the bodies that were in front of him. Maja nodded, the smile still lighting up her face. “Why are you here? In my dreams? Why did you bring me here?”_

_The expression of amusement slipped from Maja’s face, turning into one of more seriousness. She pulled the belt of her coat a bit tighter around her waist, clearing her throat, like she needed a minute to gain her composure._

_“I needed to talk to you. I fully realize that you made your decision to join Wentz and his group of heroes, but I was hoping that you may reconsider it. Think about my offer once again?”_

_Alex was pretty sure he stopped breathing at that point. The last offer wasn’t so much of an ‘offer’ as it was a threat. A threat that made him scared for his life, and ended up with Ryland having the shit kicked out of him for punching Maja. “And why would I think of doing that?”_

_Maja sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She breathed in deeply, which was offsetting to Alex. This frustration, these mannerisms; they made her seem human. And Alex didn’t want to see her as human. Any time he let his guard down, he got hurt. Eventually, she picked her head up, that twisted grin back on her face. Yep, Alex thought, she isn’t human. “I need you, Alex. You’re much more powerful than people know. With you, I could do so much – we could so much.”_

_Alex furrowed his brow, starting to get angry. He slept so he could escape the monstrosity that was the world. Not so that he could get a second helping of it in his dreams. “Go fuck yourself.”_

_“See, no matter how much I tried to convince myself you were smarter, I knew that was going to be your answer,” Maja replied with a chuckle. It quickly turned into a growl. “It’s a stupid answer, Suarez. A very, very foolish one.” She took a step closer to Alex before grabbing onto his forearm and yanking him the rest of the gap between them. Alex almost lost his footing as he was pulled over, slamming into Maja. It didn’t matter that she stood barely over five feet, he didn’t doubt that she could’ve kicked his ass. The vice grip that she had on his arm was_

_making his grit his teeth to stop from yelling out. He almost wondered if it would leave a mark when he woke up._

_“This around us, this is all going to happen Alex. Very, very soon. And you can stop this all. Stop all the murdering and the pain and the innocent deaths. You have the power to do so. Wentz and the others… they don’t know what you’re capable of. All you have to do is join me. Say the word, and I can put an end to this,” Maja whispered harshly in Alex’s ear. Alex remained silent, but this time it was mostly out of fear instead of out of boldness. He swallowed, trying to get rid of dryness that had accumulated in his throat._

_With a smirk, Maja let go of him. She wiped her palms on her jacket before saying “Selfish child. You’ll see, Alex. You’ll see the error of your ways. But don’t worry. I’ll be back. Just keep that in mind…”_

Alex shot straight up in his bed, panting for air. Feeling himself covered in a cold sheen of moisture, he ran his hands over his nightstand, trying to find his glasses. As he shoved them over his eyes he desperately tried to get himself in control. He needed to regain his composure quickly, before he lost it. He saw his forearm. The one Maja had grabbed in the dream. A dark purple bruise, shaped like a hand was forming on it already. He touched it, pressing down on it lightly. It hurt, just like any bruise would. He gasped, scrambling backwards on his bed in some form of a crabwalk. Grabbing the blanket at the bottom of his bed, he yanked it over his head, just wanting everything to go away.

He closed his eyes, trying to take a few routine deep breaths in and out, but as soon as he shut his eyes, he saw the silhouettes of the dead bodies. They stared up at him, grabbed and reached out for him, his unspoken name hanging off their dry, cracked lips. He could practically feel them surrounding him. He heard Maja’s voice, heard her laughter echoing, heard her tell him that it was up to him to stop this. He gasped again, his eyes flying open as he threw the blanket off. As he did, the lights in the bedroom began to flicker on and off. “Shitshitshit,” he started to mutter to himself, wrapping his arms around his legs, bringing them close to his body.

The last thing he needed right now was to wake up the entire house again and have to explain to them that it was because he still couldn’t keep his fucking powers in check. It wasn’t the first time that this had happened, and they were never exactly understanding of the situation. He tried the deep breaths routine again, but with each breath he took in, he got closer and closer to hyperventilating.

Why him? Why did she have to pick him when she could’ve had anyone in the house? Still shuddering, half-covered by the blanket, he started to feel nauseous. It was because he was an easy target. He knew it. No matter how much everyone tried to tell him that he was intimidating, he knew they were lying. He was about as intimidating as a Girl Scout. Frantically trying to blank his mind, he couldn’t stop himself from picturing Maja creating the scene she’d made in his head. He’d find himself there after, helpless and with all of the blame. He’d be scorned and rejected by everyone in the world, by this new family he’d found. Instead of thinking of calmness and peacefulness, all he could think of the dream. The lights began to flicker faster, and he heard glass around him begin to shatter.

“Alex?” Ryland’s voice was muffled by his pillow, sleep slurring some of the word. He was answered by the window in their room cracking loudly. Alex curled into himself tighter with a soft whimper, wanting it all to stop.

“Alex?” the voice exclaimed after no response, much more alert and concerned. Footsteps pounded across the room, and he felt hands on his shoulders, fingers running through his hair. “Alex, what’s wrong?”

He knew it was childish and he was supposed to be a fucking superhero and superheroes shouldn’t cry at all, but he couldn’t help it. He was only twenty-two years old, and he never asked to have criminal masterminds attacking him through his dreams…

“Maja’s going to kill everyone, and I can’t stop it. I’m supposed to, but I have to join her. I can’t Ry, I can’t…” he hiccupped, covering his eyes as he heard the stuff in his room begin to fly around.

“Hey, listen to me. Just listen to my voice. Okay? Can you do that?” Ryland coaxed softly, still keeping grips on him. Alex didn’t respond, just stayed still. “Alex, I need you to trust me right now. If you don’t, I can’t help you.”

Alex knew that Ryland would never lie to him. He trusted Ryland more than anyone in the world, oftentimes more than he trusted himself. They’d been friends since middle schools, and were inseparable all throughout high school – they had kind of friendship that every one wishes that they had. If they weren’t always with one another, they were communicating through notes on assorted stationary or talking nonstop on the phone.

But during his senior year of high school, when he accidentally let it slip out to his parents that he had been reading their minds for years, he never thought that he would be kicked out of his home, let alone relying on Ryland. When he showed up at the Blackinton’s door, a gym bag on his shoulder and the feeling of hopelessness weighing down on him, he was desperate. Ryland took him in, and when Alex explained everything, Ryland just said he understood and then asked Alex to read his mind.

The reliance, however, became mutual when Ryland’s parents did the same to him. Alex had been sitting in the car, when Ryland realized that they were low on gas and wouldn’t make it the whole way. He had suggested going to the gas station, but Ryland had simply winked at him before climbing out of the passenger’s seat and walking over to the gas tank.

Sitting behind the wheel, Alex watched in amazement as the gauge went up. Slowly, he climbed out of the car to see what actually was happening, and when he did, he didn’t believe it. There stood Ryland, his right hand wrapped over an enflamed cigarette lighter while the other was hovering over the gas tank. When Alex moved in closer, he saw a stream of what looked like golden light bursting from Ryland’s palm.

“It’s energy conversion. I take it from one source, and then use it to form another. I’m working on being able to simply produce it… but I’m not quite there yet,” he explained casually, a hint of pride in his voice.

“Ryland?”

The lighter fell out of Ryland’s hand, as he immediately recognized the voice. Alex swore under his breath, feeling his stomach drop. Ryland turned and found himself face to face with his horrified mother.

Ever since then, the two had never been apart. When Ryland had been at one of the coffee shops on campus and was approached by Pete Wentz and Mark Hoppus, both of them saying that they knew ‘the truth’ and they wanted to help, Ryland refused and simply walked away, leaving them at the table. “Are you fucking nuts?” Alex had yelled, maybe a little too loud for their dorm. “They’re superheroes! You! You could be a superhero! Wear tights! Have a cape! Sleep with Wonder Woman! Be Wonder Woman!”

All Ryland did was chuckle, sitting down next to Alex on his bed. He placed his hand on Alex’s knee. For most people, this type of gesture would seem meaningless, but Ryland knew how to make Alex feel just right with the smallest touch. “Alex, first of all, they don’t wear tights or capes. You just wish they did. And secondly, I’m not going to up and leave you for something better. They need to understand we’re a package deal.” It didn’t take long for Wentz and the others to change their offer.

When Ryland said to focus, more than likely, Alex was going to do it. He eventually nodded.

“Right now, right here, it’s just you and me. Like always, it’s just you and me. That’s it. I just want you to focus on that. Focus on me and the sound of my voice. Forget about the nightmare, and forget about Maja, and forget about everyone else. Just _focus_ ,” Ryland instructed, his voice staying even and calm. His hand stayed wrapped around Alex’s, squeezing tightly.

Alex did what he asked, zeroing in on Ryland’s voice. What felt like hours later, he opened his eyes to find that everything had calmed down. Their room was in shambles, everything overturned and broken. His cheeks were aflame in embarrassment.

Ryland wrapped his arms around Alex, who immediately fell into the embrace. He breathed in, wanting this to be here forever. Wanting everything to stay this way. Ryland was the only thing that never changed in his life. If something – someone were to split them up, Alex would crumble. Eventually, Ryland let go, smiling before he stood up and walked to the door where Pete and Frank stood, looks of concern mixed with annoyance on their face.

Trying to drown out the hushed voices that he knew were talking about him, Alex climbed back into his bed, taking off his glasses and pulling up the covers without so much as raising his fingers. He smiled to himself, knowing it was a misuse of his powers. But honestly, he didn’t care. If they had problem with him, meaning Pete or Maja, they could take it up with him in person.

_

“Alex!” Ryland exclaimed, desperately trying to wake up his roommate, who was thrashing and muttering in his sleep. He climbed out of his own bed and on top of Alex, who was tossing and turning, a look of pain etched out on his face. Ryland grabbed on to his shoulders and shook him. “Alex, wake up. It’s just a dream…”

Just like that, Alex stopped, settling back into the pillows and opening his eyes. “Again?” he groaned, looking up at Ryland before laying back down and covering his face with his arms. Ryland nodded, frowning. This had been the sixth nightmare that Alex had had since the first episode, and they weren’t getting any better with time. Around them, the lights slowly began to turn on and off.

“Fuckin…fuck,” Alex mumbled, sitting up.

“You with me? I mean, are you okay?” Ryland asked, gripping onto his shoulders. Alex closed his eyes and started to take a few deep breaths. When he heard Ryland’s breathing fall in time with his own, he felt calmness wash over him.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.” Ryland was reluctant to let go of him, his hands still lingering on his shoulders. He ran a hand through Alex’s damp, sweat-soaked hair, pushing it away from his face. “You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself. You’re going to end up killing yourself from the stress.”

Alex simply fell into the touch, but to them, that was normal. “I don’t know what to do anymore. Any time I try to close my eyes, she’s there. She’s waiting for me. I don’t know how she’s doing it or how to stop it,” he explained, ignoring how his voice was trembling all over the place. He started to try to pull the blanket back up, but noticed his hands were shaking. A choked sob escaped his throat as he shoved his hands under the blanket.

Ryland frowned before grabbing onto Alex’s hands under the blanket. “Come on,” he said, starting to tug him out of his bed.

“What?”

“When someone usually says ‘come on’, it means move, which you’re doing very little of,” Ryland said, still holding onto Alex’s shaky hand. Alex climbed out of his bed, and was standing next to Ryland’s bed, where Ryland was sitting on.

“Get in.”

“-fuck?”

“Usually I would take you up on that, but I’ve had my fill of psychologically preyed upon kids with emo haircuts, Suarez. So get your ass in this bed,” he said as he wriggled under the blankets.

It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, Ryland thought. They’d fallen asleep together in the Suarez’s basement countless times, watching eighties movies and Boy Meets World marathons until the crack of dawn in high school. Usually it had been in sleeping bags on the floor, but when they got older, and Alex said that sleeping on the floor sucked, he suggested sharing the pull out. (What? It was a fucking cot. It’s not like they were sharing a vibrating waterbed, thank you very fucking much).

“You don’t have to do this…” Alex started as he climbed under the covers, which Ryland used his other hand to pull over him.

“First of all, shut up. Secondly, I know, I want to. And thirdly, shut up.”

Alex chuckled softly. Feeling his hand still entwined with Ryland’s, he turned over, and Ryland placed a hand protectively on the small of his back. He smiled, before dreamless sleep overtook him.

It was the first time he’d felt safe in a long time.

_

_The street was empty this time, lights overhead buzzing with the dim flickerings. Alex was the only one on the street, walking up the sidewalk, wondering where everyone was. Was it later than he thought? The sun was still up, so it didn’t make sense that no one was out. He didn’t understand where he was going, either; it felt like he had no control over where his feet were taking him. They were pulling him where they wanted to go. He soon found himself in a large warehouse under construction. Walking through it against his better judgment, he found that everyone in the city was trapped inside the building._

_They were all dead. Bodies laying in piles, thrown across the room in masses like some child’s dolls. Their limbs contorted and the necks bent in such horrible ways…Alex turned away. Like before, a lone figure stood in the middle of the room. Alex began to storm towards it, figuring it was Maja._

_“Do you like what you see here, Alex?” Maja was standing behind him, observing the surroundings. Turning around again, Alex looked back at the figure in the middle of the room. It was still there._

_“Why are you doing this to me?” Alex muttered. “What have I done to you?”_

_“It’s not what you’ve done. It’s what you aren’t willing to do. Alex, I’ve said it before. This is what will happen. This is going to happen unless you join me. You may think I’m saying this to scare you, but I’m not. I’m trying to warn you…” Maja said, the sense of graveness in her voice telling Alex that maybe she was telling the truth._

_“Why? Why would you of all people want to do that?”_

_With a laugh, Maja crossed her arms. “As much as you all think I love pain and torture and destruction, I’m not behind this… I’m not the one who ends up being responsible for this…”_

_Alex froze. That made no sense. If there was anyone who was capable of this type of horrible crime, it would be Maja. Alex couldn’t think of anyone else… “But who?” Maja motioned to the figure still standing in the center of the room._

_Taking tentative steps toward it, Alex prepared himself for what he might see. This could be new world of evil. Something that the others may have never experienced before. If he was worse than Maja, Alex didn’t know what to think. Alex grabbed onto the shoulder of the man and spun him around…_

_And found himself eye to eye with a mirror image of himself._

This time he woke up screaming. Ryland was out of his own bed and onto Alex’s before Alex even stopped. Starting to become a routine, Alex took a deep breath and got his mind back in order before laying back down. Like always, he felt Ryland pull on his hand, his body listening more to Ryland than it did to him.

Once they had settled into the bed, sitting on top of the covers, a moment of silence passed between them. Ryland began to pull at a thread on his pillowcase. “So what was it about this time? Considering you won’t tell me about any of the others…” Alex recognized the bit of sharpness in his voice. He wanted to tell Ryland, he really did. But it was too much for him to handle, let alone giving someone else the burden. And if he told Ryland, Ryland would only worry. Or even worse, turn him away.

“Oh, erm, it was the same as last time… which was same as the first time…” Alex lied, not wanting to share the fact that Maja thought he was going to turn into a mass murderer. He couldn’t look at Ryland, who was watching him intently. Ryland had this way of breaking him.

“Stop lying to me. Why do always wake up terrified then?”

With a sigh, Alex covered his face with a pillow. “I can’t tell you, I told you that.”

Immediately, Ryland pounced and grabbed the pillow off of him. Giving him a you’ve got to be kidding me look. “That’s your excuse? ‘I can’t tell you?’ You honestly don’t think I’m going to buy that, right? You trusted me with your secret, but you can’t tell me this?”

Alex glared at him. “That’s low. Playing that card, that’s low, even for you.”

Ryland shrugged. “Hey, it’s true.”

“Fine. But you have to keep your promise,” Alex claimed exasperatedly. After the second nightmare, Alex had made Ryland swear not to tell the others that they had continued after the first one. He didn’t need them coming in and thinking he was some sort of freak as well. He didn’t want them worrying that he wasn’t in control, when he perfectly was.

That had been a few weeks ago. The nightmares were happening almost every night, and every night, when Ryland pulled him into bed with him to try to calm his nerves back down, he also tried to persuade him to talk to one of the others. Ryland stopped, dropping the pillow and sitting back down. “I don’t understand why you’re so scared of them finding out… they’ll understand too. Look at how many issues they all have. You’re nothing compared to any of them. I mean, apart from yours truly.” But he still sat there, a sign that he was going to keep his side of the deal.

Alex laughed softly, almost beginning to believe Ryland for a second. But it wasn’t true. Any of it. Alex was a freak. He had issues and if any of the others found out about them, they’d get rid of him. He couldn’t afford to lose them. To lose Ryland. He asked in a small voice “Ryland? Do you – do you think I’m – I could be evil?

Ryland was pretty sure that at that moment his heart stopped in his chest. He immediately propping himself up on his elbows. He turned to Alex, who was staring up at the ceiling. “Why the fuck would you even think such a thing?”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Alex closed his eyes. He looked really small sitting like that, like he was even younger than he actually was. Ryland wasn’t sure that he was going to get an answer, but he stayed in the same position, unsure of what to do. Alex was aware that he could tell Ryland exactly what happened in the dream. That he was his biggest enemy, that he was supposed to kill everyone, that civilization’s only hope was for Alex’s to join Maja. But he was selfish. Because he knew that if he did, he would lose the greatest thing that had ever happened in his life. And he couldn’t do that.

“It’s all so real,” Alex finally mumbled. He turned to Ryland, opening his eyes and turning to face him. In the small amount of light coming in from the window, Ryland could see the wetness shining on Alex’s cheeks. His movements slow, Alex wrapped his fingers in Ryland’s t-shirt, clinging to him. He felt the warm tears begin to soak through to his skin.

“And I’m so fucking scared, Ry.”

As Ryland wrapped a hand around Alex, pulling him in even closer, he realized for the first time he was too.  
 **.gabe &william.**  
William sat at the counter of the bar, resting his chin in his hand. He had come here a while ago with Gabe, Brendon, and Spencer, but soon found himself alone at the bar. Like any other used washed up piece of trash. He sighed, draining the rest of his beer even though he felt slightly nauseous. Brendon and Spencer were most likely in some booth, all over each other, enjoying the rare time to be ‘normal’. William was really happy for them…and only a little bit jealous.

Gabe had pretty much ditched him at the door, looking for whatever he could put his dick into. William turned around, craning his neck to try and find him, but he knew it was useless. He was probably gone by now, drunk and wrapped around some other manwhore like himself. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t ask to be treated like this. He didn’t want this.

But no matter how many times he tried to talk himself out of it, William wanted to be with Gabe. There was something deep in his heart that knew he would only truly love Gabe Saporta, and hoped that these feelings would be returned. And no matter how poorly Gabe could make him feel sometimes, William always found himself crawling back. He was pathetic.

Groaning in despondence, he laid his head down on the counter. He bet Gabe never felt jealous of people talking to him. Gabe probably wouldn’t even think twice if someone came up and talked to him. He’d probably try to steal them from William. To him, William was just another quick fuck…

“You all right there?” a voice mumbled from behind him. William looked up and found himself face to face with a blond man smiling softly, his lip ring shining. He pushed his messy mop of side swept blond hair out of his face before sitting on the stool next to William and flagging down the bartender for a drink. “I was getting a little worried for a minute that you weren’t going to make it.” He looked at William again as the bartender brought them both a beer.

William paused, something in the back of his mind telling him that this was not a good idea, but then he stopped. What had listening to that voice ever got him? Misery, heartbreak, and falling head over heels in love with Gabe Saporta. And this guy was kinda cute, in the desperately shy way. In a black v-neck and slim destructed jeans, William liked it. It was new...different...exciting. He smiled back at the mysterious stranger, flirting shamelessly. “I think I’ll be okay. Especially since you’re here…”

:: ::

  
Gabe Saporta was the fucking luckiest man in the world.

With Travie McCoy on his arm, he wandered over to the bar, wanting to get a drink as Travis began to nibble at the sensitive spot on his collarbone. If this wasn't fucking paradise, he didn't know what was. Until Travis slid a hand below the waistband of Gabe's jeans...

Yeah. Luckiest man in the world.

Or at least, he would be if he could get the bartender’s attention. He rolled his eyes, seeing that the bartender was talking to some lame blond guy with a lip ring at the other end of the bar, who was sitting and talking with… Gabe stopped, his stomach dropping. That sudden rush of ecstasy rushed out of him, leaving him feeling angry. He muttered something to Travis before storming over to the end of the bar. Who the fuck did this guy think he was?

Standing there for what felt like hours, Gabe went unnoticed to the bartender, the stranger, and above all, to William. Eventually, he grabbed sharply onto William’s arm, practically yanking him out of the chair. “What do you think you're doing?!” William snapped, glaring at him. It was taking all of his will power to not melt under Gabe’s touch, like always. Any other day, Gabe would grab onto his arm and drag him off to the bathroom for their usual sexcapades.

But not today. He pulled out of the hold sharply, leaving Gabe with a shocked expression on his face. The outburst of emotion threw Gabe for a loop. He had been ready for William to either fold under the touch, or practically jump into his arms. He had never expected anger. Maybe that was giving one of them too much credit... whether it was for him or William, he wasn't sure.

“Who’s your friend?” Gabe muttered, no longer making eye contact with him. He looked at the floor, at his shoes, at the walls – but wouldn’t look at William.

“His name is Bob.”

Gabe finally looked up at William, who sighed. “He’s a photographer. And we were just talking. Last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime,” he replied, the tone of his voice softening slightly, along with his expression. Taking a step toward Gabe, he realized that maybe this was the time he needed to open up to him about what he wanted – to be in an actual relationship. To know Gabe loved him for him and not just for the sex they had together.

He closed the gap between them. Gabe lifted his head as he felt William’s hand on his shoulder. Threading a hand through William's hair, he cupped William's cheek, stroking it with his thumb and knowing that the younger boy would immediately fall into the touch. But as soon as he had, he was gone, stepping back to his original position. His face dropped in an unreadable expression.

“However, I don’t think I can say the same for you and Travis…” he trailed off, the sharpness back in his voice.

“What? I don’t-” Gabe spluttered before he felt a hand wrap itself across itself along his waist.

Talk about fucking bad timing. He looked over at William, who was standing near Bubba or whatever the fuck his name was, who had an arm protectively wrapped around William. His William. That was his job. To protect William.

“Bilvy,” Gabe whispered, trying to take a step forward. .

“Don’t. Don’t even think of calling me that. Ever again,” William replied hoarsely, shutting his eyes. He took a deep breath before he grabbed onto Bob’s hand and led him out of the bar. Watching until they were long gone, Gabe felt like his heart was in his throat. He tore his eyes away from the door, where they landed on a still smirking Travie, who grabbed his hand and began to pull him towards one of the back rooms without a word. Gabe sighed, and looked over his shoulder once more, but let himself be pulled away.

:: ::

  
“Stop, just – just, stop. I can’t do this right now,” Gabe muttered, pulling away from Travis, who looked at him curiously. Running a hand through his hair, he knew that he needed to go apologize to William. He knew he wouldn’t feel right again until he did, and where the fuck was his shirt?

Travie smiled, reminding Gabe of a cat. “You know, you can forget about what’s-his-face. He obviously doesn’t know what he has on his hands…” He began to slowly trail kisses down Gabe’s neck.

Closing his eyes, Gabe swore under his breath. Doing the right thing was not easy. But he knew he had to do it. Even though he had Travis McCoy – gorgeous, long, and lean – right under his fingertips, he had to walk away. He pulled away again, shaking his head as he tried to pull his shirt on again.

“I have to. What we have – it’s worth more than what this night can be, and I can’t lose that,” Gabe said. As he did, it was a question of whether he was admitting that to Travis or to himself.

“Fucking...”

Honestly he hadn't expected Travis to take it this poorly, but he apologized again. “I’m sorry about this. Really,” he said, turning towards Travie, who in the past 30 seconds or so had grown a pair of very shapely breasts. Gabe stared at them incredulously, before looking up at Travis with no idea of what was going on.

“Oops?” Travis laughed, shrugging. Before Gabe could even begin to comprehend what the fuck was going on, there was a flash of bright orange light, and then Travis was no longer Travis.

“Hayley? What the fuck?” Gabe exclaimed, jumping backward and pulling his shirt on quickly. His heart was now pounding in his chest. Something was wrong. He knew it.

The redhead grinned. Before he could stop her, she was leaning over and kissing him again in mess of tongue and teeth. “Really, if we weren’t supposed to be sworn enemies, you would definitely be on my list, because that was fucking amazing while it lasted…”

“What the fuck is happening, Hayley? Where is the real Travis?”

“At my apartment. In my bed. Waiting for me,” she replied, her grin turning into more of a devious smirk.

Gabe felt like he couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t figure out what was happening still. Usually William was here to piece together everything. The face that Hayley was trying to pose as Travis to get Gabe to sleep with him was almost like he was trying to use him for something else.

Or distract him.

He reached into his back pocket, feeling around for his shutter shades. With some newfound agility, he flipped them open and shoved them on Hayley, pinning her to the wall and hoping that this was going to work.

“What is going on here tonight?”

“Maja sent us on an assignment to try to warn you.” Hayley slapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide under the shades. “How did that happen?!”

“What kind of assignment? Who’s us?” Gabe continued, starting to feel like he was gaining the upper hand. Not that it made him feel any better, because he had almost been tricked into fucking Hayley, which was not good on any account, and was having to use the truth shades to make her spill.

“To let all you heroes know that you’ll eventually be destroyed like what happens tonight. Me and Bob.”

 _Bob?_ Gabe’s heart stopped. That loser from the bar. Who was with William. And who left with him…“What’s going on tonight?” Gabe asked weakly, letting the arm that was pinning Hayley against the wall fall to his side limply.

Hayley smiled, taking off the glasses. And there went any chance of Gabe gaining the upper hand. The guys and he always joked about this, but in reality, he really was the worst superhero ever... Even when he used his powers, bad guys weren't really scared of him.

“Maja is planning to begin her destruction of the heroes. Think of it as a cycle. The heroes fall after you fall. And you fall after the destruction of William Beckett…”

She kept talking, but Gabe didn’t hear her. Along with the blood thrumming through his ears, all he could hear was _‘destruction of William Beckett_ ’ repeating over and over in his head as he ran out of the bar.

:: ::

  
William opened his eyes with no idea where he was or what had happened. The fact that he couldn’t remember what had happened to him scared him. Him being handcuffed and hanging from a metal pole in what looked like the control center in some military office made it even worse…

The last thing he remembered was being at the bar and leaving with someone. And he remembered fighting with Gabe. But he didn’t leave with him.

“So, you’re finally awake?” a voice called out from what seemed to be the chair facing a row of monitors. The chair spun around to reveal Maja Ivarsson herself, her hands neatly folded in her lap and an amused look on her face. As she looked over at William, she looked him up and down, like a prize to be won or some sort of present. With a sense of fulfillment in her eyes. She eventually dragged her eyes away from him, sighing as she did. “Sorry to have to drag you into this. I don’t like to, it’s just going to get my hands dirty. But, you see, I had to start with one of you somewhere…you just seemed to be the best choice because of that disastrous relationship you have with Saporta,” Maja said, shrugging.

“Don’t talk about Gabe like you know him. You don’t deserve the right to even speak of him,” William growled, his expression darkening. Maja stopped for a moment before continuing towards William.

“See, even after everything. After he was about to cheat on you, although I’m not sure if ‘cheat’ is the right word, for that would mean that there would have to be a monogamous relationship…” she mused as she started to uncuff William from the ceiling pipe.

And with those words, the events from the past evening came crashing back to him. Being alone…the fight…leaving…Bob…

The two of them had walked outside of the club, William still clutching Bob’s hand. When he dropped it, his hand felt tingly, so he was wondering if this was what all those teen bubble gum novels were talking about when they talked about falling in love? It was something he’d never felt with Gabe… All he could think about next was being close to him and never leaving him. Bob had been all he could think of and all he wanted. He had led William a few blocks to a small apartment where they made out for a while.

And then nothing.

William dropped to the floor hard on his left side, which exploded in pain, but he tried to ignore it. He breathed deeply through his nose, pretending that he didn’t see Maja watching him the entire time.

He wondered if Bob was okay. But he didn’t exactly want to bring him up in front of Maja in case he was fine and Maja just didn't know about it. So he just kept his mouth shut, and focused on the bitch in front him. Smiling to himself, he began to think of things like _suffering, misery_ , and _despair._ Then, he waited for the familiar feeling of energy thrumming through his veins so he could watch the aftereffects before leaving.

Nothing happened.

He tried again. Still nothing.

Dumbstruck, he stared at his hand. This didn’t make any sense. He had been perfectly fine this morning…

“Oh…I bet you’re wondering about that,” Maja laughed, motioning to William’s outstretched hand. She crouched down, her thigh muscle bulging so much William was pretty sure she could bend a pipe with them. Or whatever strong women did with their thighs…

Laughing more, she grabbed onto his pinky, wiggling his hand. “They’re gone,” she told him in a singsong voice. William stared up at Maja, feeling a look of terror etch onto his face.

“Why would I bring you here when your powers could clearly ruin my plan? No, no, no. I’m making the rules here.” He motioned to two figures who were approaching slowly. As William looked up, he noticed that it was Butcher and Bob. William stopped fighting against Maja, suddenly feeling exposed. He had fallen into a trap. For once, he had let his emotions get the best of him.

“I don’t understand…” he mumbled, letting himself be dragged across the floor to metal ring that was sticking out of the wall, where the handcuffs were stuck through.

All William saw was Bob smiled before he found himself in excruciating pain. He gasped as he felt himself writhe along the cement floor, beginning to struggle against the restraints again. Things were finally starting to make sense now. The whole ‘sweet and mysterious’ stranger appeal, the tingling when they made contact, the fact that William wanted to have sex with him in the street… Bob had stolen his powers. And he’d just used pain on William.

“You’re – not – going – to – get – away – with - this!” William argued through gritted teeth, though he was finding himself close to tears. He curled in on himself, just wanting it all to stop. He would give anything for it to all go away.

He wanted Gabe.

Maja rolled her eyes, looking over at Bob who was smirking. “Could you turn him off? I’ve seen just about enough of this,” With that, William found himself dry eyed and no longer upset. And with a new wave of fear instilled in him.

:: ::

 

  
“You’re sure that it was Hayley?” Pete asked as he walked up to door alongside Gabe. Frank was busy creating a soundproof force field around them and the door.

“No, I’m not. But the fact that Travis grew breasts and then turned into Hayley’s twin sister was pretty cool,” he grunted sarcastically. “Pete, why can’t you just trust me? I know what’s happening!”

With a shrug, Pete backed off. “Sorry, it’s just you’re not usually like this. So it’s kinda hard to take you seriously.” He got ready to kick the door in, and once he began to, instead of it being silent like planned, it banged against the wall, getting everyone’s attention.

“Where the fuck is Frank?!” Gabe exclaimed, backing up into Pete automatically, who motioned forward.

Frank was laying motionless on the ground at the feet of what looked like a twentysomething dark haired figure dressed in what looked like an old marching band uniform. He looked extremely uncomfortable standing next to Maja, frowning and biting his lip. He kept glancing down at Frank before turning back at Maja.

“Gabe! I’m so happy you’re here. You know, you missed a great show,” Maja gushed, stepped forward towards Gabe. As she began to laugh heartily, she extended a hand to Gabe, expecting him to shake it.

“Where is he?” Gabe snarled.

Maja crossed her arms. “You two really have been quite fun to watch. First you’re like animals in heat, just in it for the fucking. Then you can’t stand each other, the plot unfolding like some ninety-nine cent harlequin romance novel. And then practically you're foaming at the mouth to get him back…”

“Answer my fucking question, Ivarsson, or I’ll-”

“You’ll what? Turn into a snake and bite me? I am certainly petrified. Oh, that’s right. ‘Fangs up!’” she said, imitating Gabe before bursting into laughter. Gabe had to resist the urge to strangle Pete as she heard him begin to snicker as well.

When the laughter had died out, Maja motioned over her shoulder. “He’s right there. You can take him.”

Gabe paled. The fact that William had been there the whole time and hadn’t said one word, not to him or to anything – scared him shitless. He didn’t even say anything in a form of a resistance. As Gabe started to approach him, he realized that he was just sitting there, taking it all in silently and motionlessly. Like some sort of living doll.

“William?” he started, his voice starting to shake with fear that he had wanted to hide. William didn’t even so much as lift his head at the calling of his name. Gabe was starting to think that maybe he was actually dead, and this was some sort of cruel joke. Maybe that's why he wasn't saying anything...

“B-Bilvy?” he tried again, crouching down next to the younger man. Slowly, William turned his head and looked at Gabe, but it was like he was looking right through him. There was nothing in his eyes anymore. His body might still have been alive, but William Beckett was dead. Skin pale and almost cool to the touch, dark purple circles ringing around his vacant eyes...Gabe half expected him to no longer have a beating pulse.

“Oh. Hi.”

Gabe thought he was going to fall over on the spot. He turned around to face Maja, who was grinning with excitement. “What did you do to him?” he whispered on the verge of hysterics, terror hanging heavily in his voice. His emotions that usually kept so well hidden behind his demeanor of coolness and confidence were exploding from underneath.

"I myself did nothing. However, he got what he was asking for. All those years playing and toying with people's emotions...it was just going to come back and fuck him over. I made it easier by destroying his emotions altogether..." she explained before tossing the key to Gabe and walking out, slowly followed by Butcher, Bob, and the dark haired boy, who kept looking at Frank.

With shaking hands, Gabe tried to undo the handcuffs, not wanting to act scared in front of William. That was one of the first things he had learned - don't show fear in front of the captive during rescue. It never crossed his mind that the captive might be William. However, his hands were shaking so badly that it took him four tries to finally get the key into the lock.

"Bilvy, please," he implored, his voice beginning to quaver. "Don't, don't do this to me. You can't leave me alone. You - you just can't."

William simply stared at him. He looked Gabe up and down slowly before settling on his face. "Do I know you?" he asked flatly.

"Nononono." Gabe pulled the cuffs off of his hands before taking them in his own. "Of course you know me. It's Gabe. Gabe. I'm your - we - you and I-"

The fact that Gabe couldn't find a term for the relationship that he and William shared wasn't helping. This was all his fault. He was going to lose this best thing that could've happened to him just because he could never keep it in his pants. He squeezed William's hand and ran his own over it, hoping to illicit some form of response from him. Pulling the hand to his lips, he softly kissed the knuckles on the hand.

Nothing. All he got was a blank stare.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He tried to push Pete away, but Frank was with him too. "Gabe, come on. We'll take him back to the house. Maybe...maybe Mark or Mikey can figure out how to fix him."

"Don't you get it? This is my fault! All my fault! There's no way to fix this! No one can fix this... it's not like some fucking cut or bruise you can cover up with a band-aid and make it all better. They used his own powers to destroy him! He's gone!" Gabe yelled angrily, whirling around at Pete and Frank, the anger quickly turning into tears as he collapsed back down onto the ground. He felt like he was trapped in some horrible nightmare, and was just waiting for someone to wake him up.

A desperate last attempt, Gabe grabbed onto William, pulling him close. In his arms was the limp shell of the boy he'd given his heart to years ago, and had not realized until this very moment. After all the clues dropped by William, Gabe hadn’t understood. Until now, when he was about to lose everything. "You can't leave me," he whispered before pressing their lips together. "Please don't... _te amo_..." he mumbled into William's hair before repeating the kiss.

They stayed that way in silence for minutes before Gabe came to the realization that nothing was going to happen This wasn't like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, where true love's kiss would make it all better and wake the sleeping prince before they all rode off into the fucking sunset happily ever after. Nothing was going to make it better. He could practically feel his heart breaking. And just like that, with a sharp intake of air, William jerked suddenly in Gabe's arms. Loosening his grip on him, he felt William go slack against his own body, his head resting in the crook of Gabe's shoulder.

"Gabe..." Frank started, shifting uncomfortably back and forth on the balls of his feet. Gabe waved a hand at him to shush him. He wasn’t imagining this.

"Gabe." The voice was soft, but he felt it murmured into his neck, felt the hand slowly taking a handful of his shirt, felt the warmth return into the skin pressed up against him. And with that, Gabe knew everything was going to be okay. He smiled, almost feeling like he was going to burst. He kissed the top of William's head, who in return let out a pained moan and moved closer.

"It's okay, Bilvy. I'm right here. And I'm never leaving you again."

 **.frank &gerard.**  
Frank had barely stumbled into his room and shed his uniform before he had collapsed onto his bed in his boxers, physically drained and emotionally exhausted. Watching that exchange between Gabe and William made him on edge and had grated his emotions to their raw ends.

It wasn’t like he was the best of friends with Gabe or William; in fact, he wasn’t particularly close with anyone in the house, except for maybe Mikey. The two of them shared similar tastes in music and joked around with each other, and when Frank wasn’t at work or Mikey at school, they’d hang around with each other.

But to watch what happened today between Gabe and William today was rough. He almost got choked up when William wasn’t responding, and he wasn’t even fucking in love with him like Gabe was. After Gabe healed him with his magical ‘I love you’, Frank and Pete were given the job of going to kick Maja’s ass until Bob gave William his powers back. Which, of course, was just another great part to his day.

Covering his face with his hands, he was exhausted. But he was so wired, he felt like he was shaking. And he still couldn’t get Maja’s new guy out of his head either. He was so strange…the way he had just been standing there like that awkward kid everyone went to school with...

Frank had been all set with his force field, and then out of nowhere, the new guy showed up behind him. He didn’t say anything, just stood there for a moment, the side of his mouth turned up in what Frank thought was a smirk. There was something familiar about him that had made him want to stop and lower his guard. He just wasn’t able to figure it out. But of course, he did. The force field fell apart, and the next thing he remembered, he was on the ground and the guy was staring down at him. It just didn’t make any sense. He didn’t seem anything like Maja’s other bitches. He didn’t seem…evil.

Pressing the palms of his hands onto his eyes, he let out a sigh. There were times, especially like today, when Frank would regret the day he agreed to join into Pete’s so-called ‘superly awesome way-better-than-the-Justice-League’ group of heroes. He had just been a normal kid. He grew up in a normal town, with a normal family and a normal life.

As he continued to think about it, the normalness was actually pretty boring. If it wasn’t for-

wait… _familiar…familiar…_

FUCK.

Frank shot up into a sitting position, everything finally clicking into place. It all made sense now, and yet in the same way, it made absolutely no sense at all. His heart was pounding so loudly he could practically hear it. If he thought he was shaking before, he was trembling now, his hands quaking in front of him.

All he could think of was why?

As he was about to climb out of his bed and go ask, he realized that he wasn’t alone in the room. Sitting on the window sill watching Frank was Maja's new guy. With his dark cropped hair, dark eyes, and marching band style jacket, he cocked his head to the left once Frank's eyes met his.

To think that one of Maja's guys had gotten into his bedroom, let alone the house was kinda scary.

Actually, it was really fucking scary.

Frank let out a yell, scrambling to his feet and trying to make it to the door, but ending up in a clumsy heap on the floor by his bed.

"Don't yell! Please! Please don't yell," he exclaimed, jumping off the bed and running over towards Frank. Expression quickly changing from one of interest to one of extreme panic, he quickly clamped a hand over Frank's mouth, now practically sitting on top of him. He placed his knees on either side of Frank's waist, and leaned in closer, and Frank couldn't tell if the gesture was meant to be threatening. "You can't tell anyone I was here. No one. Okay? The last thing I need is for all your superfriends to know I can get into this house. Please?" he begged, his hand still on top of Frank’s mouth.

Looking up at him, Frank slowly nodded. “Okay,” the new guy said before slowly climbing off of him. Sitting there in disbelief, he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet as Maja's guy gently placed him back on his bed before sitting down next to him. The silence that passed between the two of them was deafening before Frank broke it.

"Who are you? Why are you in my bedroom?"

With a sigh, he dropped his head, beginning to wring his hands. "Because. I need your help."

Out of anything that this man sitting next to him could've possibly said, that was not what Frank was expecting. He could understand _'Maja wants me to kill you'_ or _'I have to kidnap you and I’d love some cooperation'_ or something like that. Never would he have expected one of Maja's people coming to ask him for help.

He didn't believe it.

"Why should I believe you? What can I give you that your leader Maja can't?" Frank snapped, crossing his arm.

The expression darkened on the intruder's face. With something that Frank had said, something had clicked in his brain, and changed the way he was thinking. "You can protect my brother."

So it was true.

Frank had a feeling that Mikey and this guy looked alike, and that maybe, in some twisted way in some alternate universe, the two of them might be related. But that had just been a thought in the way back of Frank’s mind, because _no way_ would Mikey Way’s brother work for Maja Ivarsson.

And yet here he was, admitting it was all true and coming to Frank asking for his help to look out for Mikey.

"What?" was all Frank could get out, knowing that the look on his face expressed the shock that he was feeling.

With a groan and a roll of his eyes, he got off of the bed, going to stand over by the window. "Yes, Mikey's my little brother. My name is Gerard. And I need your help."

Dumbstruck. That was the only word that Frank could think of to describe how he was feeling. It was mind-boggling. He had thought of he and Mikey as somewhat close, but it seems that Mikey actually had a number of secrets that he was hiding. And now one of them was in Frank's bedroom, pacing around.

"Why can't you just do it yourself? I mean, he is your brother…" Frank prodded, climbing into the middle of his bed.

Gerard let out a short laugh. "You can't be serious. Do you honestly think that I would be here if I was capable of doing it myself? Here, putting all of my faith into a person that I barely know, who is supposed to be my ‘sworn enemy’ and all that shit, asking him to try and protect my brother from unforeseen evils?" Shaking his head, a tense smile pulled at his face. "I knew I made a mistake by coming to ask you."

"Wait!" Frank shouted, starting to jump from the bed and reaching out towards Gerard. "Just - just wait. First, you need to explain what the fuck this whole thing is about. Then, I'll tell you whether or not I'll help you."

His facial expression softening, Gerard stood there for a moment before he went and sat back down on the bed next to Frank. "Fine. Deal." Running a hand through his messy tuft of black hair, he turned on the bed and sat himself cross legged, close enough to Frank that their knees barely touched.

"When Mikey and I were young - I was 9, Mikey was 6 - our parents were killed in a home invasion. We really didn't have a big family, so we were placed in foster care. I remember the first night we were there, he was so scared he made himself sick. I mean, he was only six, what'd you expect? From that point on, I promised that I would always look out for him..." Gerard explained, looking down at his hands so that he would have anything else to look at other than Frank, who at this point felt like he actually was dreaming.

To watch this supposedly 'bad guy' pretty much melt and fall apart in front of him, exposing his vulnerabilities to him, a person he didn't even know... he didn't get it. Why would Gerard, when he had his supervillain comrades, come to Frank? And even if he did, what the fuck with all the soul baring secreting sharing shit? This wasn’t exactly evil genius behavior. But the more that Gerard continued to talk about the Way brothers' past, the less that Frank was inclined to believe that Gerard actually was a true villain.

"...Mikey always was more likable than I was. He could always adjust to anything. Which is why I understood how he managed to flourish in the system. He went to school, he did well, he made friends... he did everything that he was supposed to. And he could've led a normal life. Had a normal family, mother and father, friends, everything a teenage boy should have. The only thing that stood in the way was me."

Suddenly, Gerard pulled his knees up to chest, and no longer was he some lackey of Maja's, or the guy that had knocked out Frank from behind with a cheap shot - he was Mikeyway's older brother, and that was all Frank could see now. He had to keep convincing himself that Gerard actually worked for Maja and was capable of hurting people. If he didn’t – if he forgot about that, he wasn’t sure what he might do…

"I don't understand..." Frank whispered, finding himself leaning closer. There was something about Gerard, just like earlier today – it knocked down all of Frank’s guard.

Frowning, Gerard placed his chin on his knees. "Mikey and I had promised each other that from the beginning that we would go where the other one went. I had started it, because I was worried that he would get left behind at the home. It ended up being that all the families that came wanted Mikey...and just Mikey. I was the one that held him back from having a real life. So while he made friends and got As in his classes, I dropped out of school and started doing drugs. But not matter how much I tried to convince him to go with one of the families, he wouldn’t…”

"So what happened?" Frank asked softly, still in disbelief that this was happening. He turned to look out the window, and noticed that the sky was beginning to lighten. Gerard Way had been in his bedroom for hours now. Gerard didn't say anything. He stayed still, before covering his face with his hands. With a shaking touch, Frank began to reach out to place a hand on his forearm before drawing back. Against his better judgment, he tried again, gently placing his hand on the older Way brother's arm. Gerard looked at the hand before he looked up at Frank with a surprised face.

"Five months before my eighteenth birthday and when I would be released from foster care, Mikey began to have horrible nightmares. He didn't tell me about them, but I would wake up and find him tossing and turning in the middle of the night. When I finally asked him about it, he said they were about us being separated and never seeing each other again. At that time, that was the only thing on my mind. It was then that I realized that I had caused him to have those dreams. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I ran," he finished with a shrug, as if it was no big deal. However, Frank was able to see through it.

"So you don't regret it?" Gerard simply raised an eyebrow. "Leaving your, what, fifteen year old brother all alone in foster care with no idea what happened to you or if you're even still alive?"

Cheeks flushing with emotion, Gerard ducked his head. "It's not like I had a choice. Add possession and shadow traveling to that dream shit, and I would've ruined the kid's life. I was only eighteen, Frank. I didn't know what else to do."

With a sigh, Frank frowned. He didn't know if it was Gerard's story, or if it was the fact that Gerard had just addressed him by name for the first time, but he felt...something unfurl in his stomach. He just couldn't tell what it was yet. "What do you need from me?" he finally asked softly, starting to rub his thumb in small circle on Gerard’s upper arm.

"Just look out for him. I know Pete and Mark and the others do. I'm happy they gave him a home and everything, but if it came down to saving a civilian or saving my brother, you know who they'd pick. They've gotta keep up the images."

"So why am I any different?" Frank said with a smile.

Gerard began to laugh, a genuine laugh. "I ask myself that a lot. Why I should put my faith in you, why I told you any of that story, why I'm doing any of this... but in all honesty, I know you don't have any other agendas. Because if I tried this with any of the others, it would've been a whole different story. And I like you… you’re different from them."

With that, he got up from the bed and looked out the window, noticing that the sun was beginning to peek out over the horizon. "I have to get back. The shadows are dying out, and Maja's going to notice I'm gone soon."

Frank got to his feet, following Gerard towards the window. "Why do you work for her? You seem so..."

Gerard gave him a sad smile. "All of us have our reasons. It's a long story. Maybe another time." He started to back up in the dark corner of Frank's room. It took all of Frank's will power not to try to pull him back into the lighted part, to have him stay in the house and go talk to Mikey.

"One other thing. Don't tell Mikey about this."

And with that, the shadow covered him in darkness and absorbed his body, eventually leaving nothing behind in its wake except an empty corner and a feeling to match throughout Frank.

 **.mark &tom.**  
“I know Mikey, I get it. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes…” Mark told his apprentice over the phone, rubbing a hand over his face. The two of them had just hit a motherlode of information concerning Maja Ivarsson’s newest project involving some type of new machinery. Granted, it wasn’t done in the most _legal_ way, but the government would probably be thanking them if the two of them could figure out a way to save the entire planet. So after hitting her encrypted files around 2AM, Mikey mentioned they should probably do the scan now and wait for them to unpack in case anything was time sensitve. Glancing at the clock along with the size of the files, Mark grumbled about making a coffee run.

At the local convenience store a few blocks down the street from their house, he grabbed a fresh canister of coffee, knowing that it would be a hell of a lot better to make there own than to drink that muddy water that was being served. After he paid, his bag in one hand, he made his way out the door, already extremely unenthused about having to sit up for hours and wait for what might be nothing…

Just as he was about to turn onto the street that led to their complex, he felt an all-too familiar blunt pressure against his back. Of course. Because this would have to happen to him _now_. “Hand over your money, and if try you scream, you’ll be dead before it can even get out of your lungs…” the voice said from behind him roughly as they pushed the gun against him again. Mark rolled his eyes. The overexcessive threats, the lack of planning, the fact that they were in the middle of a sidewalk – it was an amateur.

“Caught me on a bad day. No cash to spare. But if you’d like I can surely hand over this lovely can of Morning Roast for you…” Mark said mockingly. It was stupid, and completely not thought out, but he needed to prove to himself that he actually could take care of himself. He tangled the plastic bag between his fingers, swinging it over his head until he heard it make contact and the gun release of his back. Bolting off, running as fast as he possibly could, he ran past the house and continued down the street.

That is, until he crashed into what seemed to be a wall. Bouncing backward onto the sidewalk and seeing stars he looked upward. As he took in what was in front of him, he realized he must’ve hit his head harder than he had thought. Because staring down at him was none other than Tom fucking DeLonge.

“Oh, wow. Sorry about that. I wasn’t really paying attention, or looking for… sprinters?” Tom said with a laugh, pulling his earbuds out of his ears and offering a hand to Mark to pull him to his feet. A real hand. With skin and bones and muscle and everything. A real person. The real Tom.

Mark felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little pale…” Tom asked, putting his hand onto Mark’s shoulder.

“Oh, I. Yeah. Fine,” Mark said, his voice escaping him each time he realized that after all this time, he had finally found him. He wasn’t dead. He was still alive. “I – I’m sorry too. I’m Mark…” he said.

Tom smiled at that. “Tom. Nice to meet you, although it could’ve been on better terms.” Mark nodded, still feeling like he was dreaming. “So what are you doing sprinting around on these streets at 3AM?”

Mark smiled, suddenly feeling a little more at ease. He tried to keep reminding himself that no matter how much this looked like Tom – the old Tom – this one was somehow working for Maja. But it was too hard. Having Tom near him; it felt like having his other half back. “Buying coffee, escaping muggers, the usual.” The laugh that follows, it’s loud and bright, and it makes Mark pinch himself to let himself know that it still isn’t real. “You?”

“On patrol.”

Mark almost lets out a choked laugh, because he knows what that means. “For what?”

“Oh, my job. I work for Maja Ivarsson,” Tom said simply. Mark bit down on the inside of his cheek. So it was true. Maja, who oftentimes escaped police or authority interference on the basis that she was a fucking businesswoman, had her ‘employees’ on patrol of the city. And one of those was Tom…

“Really. How’s that?”

With a shrug, Tom turned on the street, swinging his earphones in one hand. “I mean, it’s okay. She tells me that I’m a valuable member of the team, that she’d be nowhere without me. She even gave me this huge project to work on… said it couldn’t be done without me.”

Mark felt like he was going to throw up. Tom didn’t even understand what had happened to him. He didn’t know he was evil. It was – it was so unvearabe to think of. “And what did you do before that?” Mark forced himself to say.

There was a beat of silence. And then another. “I must’ve done something similar? Yeah. Something like business…” As the pieces slowly started to pull together in Mark’s head, he couldn’t believe that he was going to have to turn his back on Tom. After all these years of wishing for him to come back – and now here he was – and Mark was going to have to leave him… Muttering some excuse about having to get home, Mark turned away.

“Wait, can we meet up again some time?” Tom called out. As his heart broke that very moment, Mark turned away without a word, letting his feet pull him away before he could turn back.

  
 **jon &ryan.**  
Jon really wasn’t sure who elected him as the guy who tried to get Ryan to join them in their unofficial crusade to defeat Maja Ivarsson. Because in his opinion, he wasn’t doing a very good job. He wasn’t actually not doing his job at all… At this point, he hadn’t even mentioned the word ‘superhero’ to Ryan. And he was pretty sure that it’s not going to come up any time soon. Fuck Mark and his idea of trying to monopolize the entire world, because right now, Jon was a little busy.

In a mess of tangled limbs that somehow managed to make it all the way up the flight of stairs to Ryan’s apartment, which was miraculously empty, Jon felt like he was in some sort of dream. Like he was having an out of body experience. Because there is no way that this was happening.

Brendon had complained over and over about how _no one_ was ever good enough for Ryan Ross. Whenever someone tried to set him up with someone, he dumped them halfway through the date, complaining that they: talked too much, ate too much, weren’t stylish enough, had bad taste in music, had frizzy hair, breathed through their mouth too loud, smiled too widely, faintly smelled like old Doritos all the time, wore clothes that were ‘so gaudy it reminded him of Mr. T’, or looked like a giant leprechaun (was that even possible?).

According to Brendon, Ryan was the unhappiest twenty year old ever.

Jon had been waiting for something like that to happen. For Ryan to find something wrong with him that would end this…this…whatever this was. But it hadn’t come. This was happening. And it felt _so right_.

Once Ryan finally managed to key his door open, they broke apart for just a second, long enough for Ryan to slam the door shut behind him. Jon found himself pressed against the wall, Ryan leaning heavily against him. The room was dark, lit only by a nightlight next to the sink and whatever light was coming in from the windows. The smaller boy’s mouth turns up in a devious smirk before he grabbed fistfuls of Jon’s shirt, yanking him forward and pulling him into an open mouthed kiss.

Squirming slightly at first, Jon smiled into the kiss before grabbing Ryan around the waist, pulling him closer. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the fact that Ryan was kind of tipsy, tasting faintly of red wine (Jon wasn’t trying to take advantage or anything, so don’t get that idea, you bastard. He couldn’t help it that Ryan was a fucking lightweight and was practically drunk after one glass of wine, okay?), but when Ryan hoisted himself upwards, wrapping his thin legs around Jon’s waist, Jon couldn’t help but laugh.

As he softly dropped Ryan onto the bed, his head bouncing against the pillows, it feels like they’ve been doing this for years; Ryan trailing hot open mouthed kisses down Jon’s jawline and over his scruff, down his neck and onto his collarbone with his red and shiny swollen lips.

In a fluid movement, Jon tangled his hands in Ryan’s hair, desperate for more to touch. Not quite sure if he ended up hurting Ryan when he did it, but he pulled Ryan’s face closer to his, meeting Ryan’s lips with his own. A collision of teeth, tongues, biting, bruising, and lips - when Jon pulled away, he was smiling, almost laughing. He honestly hadn’t felt this happy in a long time. He never felt this good when he was with Cassie.

Shredding out of their shirts, Jon had barely gotten his off of his head before Ryan had looped a hand around his neck, playing with his hair and pulling him down quickly to press their lips together again. “Want you…so bad Ry,” he whispered, starting to move his lips down Ryan’s chest, latching his teeth around his nipple. Ryan answered with a whimpered mewl, his back arching so much that his hips practically slammed into Jon’s. With his cherry red lips and his half-lidded eyes, Ryan looked stoned. And Jon had never wanted anything more in his life. He slid back up to kiss him. He was hard, achingly hard, so when Ryan smirked and began to palm him through his jeans, all Jon could do was let out a moan.

Ryan ghosted a hand over the button of Jon jeans, and all thoughts of what’s-her-face were erased from his mind. When he looked down at Ryan, his face was flushed and his tongue pressed against his bottom lip in sheer determination, like taking off Jon’s pants was some brain teaser – it was probably one of the hottest things Jon has ever seen. He just wanted to take him there, and it took all of his will power not to push him down against the bed and fuck him senseless.

Closing his hand over Ryan’s and not taking his eyes off of him, he silently helped him guide the button open before undoing the zipper himself. As he kicked off his own jeans, Ryan worked on his own, hurriedly wriggling out of them, and every second that they weren’t touching was _killing_ Jon.

Easing them down off of him, Jon felt Ryan's hips rise up to meet his hand. A moan escaped from Ryan's lips as he tipped his head back. "God, _fuck_ , Jon...need you now."

Jon nodded slowly. “Okay…okay.” He rummaged around in the pocket of his jeans until he found a condom. As he put it on, he heard Ryan making exasperated noises on the bed.

Crawling back up on the bed, Jon pressed kisses against Ryan’s thighs and up against his hips. “These are so pointy,” he teased, tracing his finger over Ryan’s pelvis. “Wanna gain ten pounds so you don’t poke my eyes out first?” Jon laughed, but the lightness of his voice, along with his erection pressed against Ryan’s thigh told him that he was joking.

“You’re just – ah! – jealous,” Ryan started, as Jon took the chance to slide a finger inside him.

Grinning, Jon began to work the finger. “What was that again?” he asked, sliding a second one in beside the second and watching Ryan arch his back into the touch, moaning as he did so.

The sounds the came from Ryan were unlike anything the Jon had ever heard before. It made him feel like his heart was pounding just a little bit faster. Placing one of his hands on Ryan’s hip, which was damp and hot with perspiration, Jon wordlessly pulled his fingers out of Ryan, and slid his dick in.

He felt Ryan tremble under the touch before reaching out and grabbing the hand that Jon had placed on his hip. He pulled Jon closer, leaning up to kiss him before practically pushing him back down. However, Ryan still held onto Jon’s hand, entwining it with his own, which was a gesture that surprised him but was oddly endearing. Rolling his hips into Ryan, thrusting and rocking together in a sweaty, sticky mess on the bed, the beautifully desperate noises that Ryan was making, calling out his name over and over, panting and moaning - it drove Jon insane. He pulled Ryan closer than ever, letting the surge of exhilaration take the rest.

:: ::

  
When Ryan finally woke up, he had a killer headache. Turning over made him groan, which just made the headache more insufferable. He just wanted to crawl back under the covers and sleep until the university kicked him out.

As he started to climb back under the covers, he froze. “What?” he whispered to himself, hand frozen in midair. He had been pretty drunk, but not drunk enough not have lost all of his clothes in the process… only Brendon could do that.

Looking around the room he found them folded and piled neatly on the bed next to him, along with a cup of tea on his night stand. Which was weird, because the others always made him coffee and told him to pick up his own shit. With a gasp, he sat straight up, hugging the covers to him. He’d done it. Let his guard down and slept with Jon Walker. After only four dates, although he was pretty sure the first two weren’t dates.

Sitting there for a second, he wanted to feel disgusted with himself. He wanted to be angry and hate himself and take an hour long shower until he was clean. Then, he could go back to normal and forget about last night while continuing to hate every thing else about himself. Most importantly, he wanted to hate Jon Walker.

He couldn’t. He was fucking beaming. He couldn’t stop smiling.

“Hey sunshine.”

Ryan turned his head to find Jon, only dressed in his boxers, coming into the room and sitting on the edge of the bed. “Do I want to know what my lovely roommates responses were to seeing you this morning?” Ryan asked, his voice coming out hoarser than he expected it too. He tried to fix his hair, which he felt was sticking up completely on one side.

Jon laughed. “Well, when I came out of the room, Spencer gave me the usual ‘I’m happy for you two, but if you hurt him, I’ll rip your soul out’ talk.”

“He didn’t. Please. Please tell me he didn’t,” Ryan implored. Jon just laughed more.

“Patrick walked around singing what I believe to be ‘Let’s Get it On’ under his breath, but when I tried to ask him what it was, he wouldn’t tell me.”

Ryan covered his face with his hands, trying to conceal the fact that his face was purple right now. “Please tell me that’s it.” Although he kinda knew that it wasn’t.

“Brendon greeted me with what he called the ‘oh yeah, Ryan’s finally getting laid!’ song and dance. It was quite the scene,” Jon stated simply.

With a sigh, Ryan laid back, covering his face with a pillow. He peeked out from under it at Jon who was still laughing. “You know, feel free to kill me at any time. ‘Cause, you know, if you don’t, I might go out there and strangle them one by one.”

Jon rolled his eyes and wrapped his fingers around Ryan’s wrist, pulling him forward. In a swift movement, Ryan was springing off on the mattress, crashing onto Jon. Their bare chests collided with each other before Jon was down on the mattress with Ryan on top of him. It was out of the ordinary for Ryan, but he liked it. Besides, Jon was warm and smelled faintly of toothpaste.

“You’re – you’re kinda fucking amazing,” Jon whispered against Ryan’s lips, sending a chill up his spine. He laughed, leaning over and cupping the side of Jon’s face in his hand before pulling him in for a kiss.

“I like to think so myself, but I’m happy someone else agrees.” He smiled against mouth, breaking away just enough to press his forehead again Jon’s, who chuckled in response.

“What are you doing today?”

Ryan shrugged, gracefully rolling off of him and grabbing the mug of tea on the table. “Nothing. I was planning on skipping class.”

Jon raised an eyebrow that Ryan chose to ignore. Eventually Jon broke out in a grin. “Awesome. I was going to call into work sick. Wanna spend the day together? We could go down to the park and see my friend Tommy’s band play in that live music festival. They’re – they’re kinda amateur, but you know, they’ve still got that novelty to them. But, if you don’t want to, we could always-” Jon couldn’t believe himself. He was fucking _babbling_. As his cheeks went aflame, he felt like a teenager again. It was so embarrassing.

Ryan must've noticed this, because he began to laugh, almost choking on the tea he had in his mouth. He tried to stop, but as he tried to start to talk to Jon, he just kept laughing. "Jon Walker, are you nervous?"

"You wish." But instead of snapping back with some witty retort, Ryan simply grabbed his hand, rolling it over in his own before pressing a kiss against the knuckles.

:: ::

  
Freshly showered and dressed just in a pair of jeans, Ryan lingered in his room for longer than he normally did. He just - he needed time to wrap his head around this.

This was a big deal. Ryan had gone on a date, enjoyed himself, and had sex. With a guy. And now he was actually going to see him again. And he was exciting. He couldn't stop smiling. His stomach was feeling all weird and shit. Just the thought of Jon made him want to start giggling and start make fucking those fucking moony heart eyes that Brendon and Spencer always made at each other.

This was a fucking big deal.

He sighed, pulling a shirt over his head, before looking at himself in the mirror. Ryan Ross didn't fall easily. He could create a tornado with a wave of a finger or make it rain without even blinking... But finding someone he _truly_ liked; that was one of the hardest things in Ryan's life.

"You deserve this," he whispered out loud, trying to convince himself that it was going to be okay. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm his racing thoughts. "Jon likes you for you. He won't care if he knows that you can create hurricanes or tsunamis..." Or at least, he hoped so. Everyone else he had told before seemed to have a problem with it...

He took a few more deep breaths before collecting himself and heading towards the door. As he started to open it, he noticed it was slightly ajar, and he could hear Brendon, Spencer, and Jon talking in hushed voices. _Deliberately_ hushed.

Opening the door as quietly as he could to hear more, he just stood there. All he could see from this view was the back of Jon sitting at the table. Brendon and Spencer were out of sight, but he could still hear them.

"...don't know what to do. If - if he knew what was going on, maybe it would be different." That was definitely Jon's voice, but he had no idea what he was talking about.

"If you keep prolonging this, Pete's gonna find out and he's gonna flip a shit. You have to just get it over with." That was Brendon talking. Well, more like commanding. But what the fuck did Patrick's boyfriend have to do with any of this? And what the fuck was so important.

It was quiet for a few seconds. Ryan heard the chair scraping before Spencer mumble in a low snarl "I said this morning that I didn't want you to hurt him. That's still standing."

"Spence..."

Ryan backed into the wall, his breathing becoming quicker. They were talking about him. What - why? Why were they talking about him? It was like high school all over again; he knew his friends used to talk shit behind his back about him, but he was never there to actually hear it. Why were they talking about him now?

He closed his eyes, willing it to actually go away. That’s all he needed, was for him to wake up, out of this fucking horrible nightmare, for these new feelings for Jon Walker to go away, and for him to be able to go back to the way he was: alone, miserable, and hating every second of his existence.

"Are we sure that it was him? We've never seen it happen here..." Brendon asked.

“He’s had years of practice controlling his powers. He could just be really good at it.” Ryan felt his heart stop. That – they still couldn’t be talking about him, right? They couldn’t possibly know.

"Brendon, you saw the tape. He put out those fires. He made it rain inside the school that day we saved Patrick, and we're supposed to convince him to join us, before Maja forces him..." Jon explained, but Ryan stopped listening. He’d heard enough.

He felt the wind knocked out of him. Turning away from them and what was going on, he didn't know whether he wanted to cry or whether to scream. He couldn't breathe, couldn't focus, _couldn't believe_ this was happening. He had tried to prepare himself for this day, told himself that it would be okay and he could just smile and walk away from it. Every time he did, it was a different situation, with different people in a different place. But every time he played it over and over in his head, it was never like this. It may have involved these three, but it was never like this – never this _ugly_.

Them talking had just turned into what sounded like an incessant buzzing sound, but when Ryan actually tried to listen, he realized it wasn't them, but him, saying " _Nonononono_ " over and over. Clawing at the wall behind him for some sort of support, he felt his knees crumple underneath, and he slowly sank onto the floor.

Which must have given away his hiding place, for Jon tipped back in his chair, and all Ryan heard was "Oh fuck" before he heard footsteps surround him. He wondered if shooting lightning at them right now would be severely damaging, because all he wanted was for them to leave him the fuck alone. Maybe a hailstorm would be a better option…

"Ryan?" A hand ran itself gently through his hair, as if - as if that was supposed to be comforting and make it all better.

Pulling his arms away from his face, he glared at whoever it was. Spencer...obviously. "Get your hands off me," he growled darkly before grabbing onto Spencer's hand and practically throwing it back at him. Jon and Brendon exchanged looks as Spencer faltered, a wave of hurt passing over him.

Ryan pulled himself to his feet. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "How long have you two known?"

Spencer and Brendon looked at one another. "What?"

Practically on the verge of tears, Ryan yelled "How long have you known, you fuckers?" His voice has lost all sense of threat and anger, and had raised almost a whole octave, but he couldn't stop himself. "How long have you been playing stupid with me? How long have you been letting me tiptoe around, while you knew the whole time? How long -" he stopped short, something finally clicking in his mind. His expression darkened. "How long have you been lying to me about yourself?" he whispered.

Spencer shifted uncomfortably on the balls of his feet, staring at the ground the whole time. Brendon opened his mouth and closed it again, slightly resembling a fish. He stopped, his posture deflating visibly. "Since the fire. We didn’t know what else to do, Ry. We were just as shocked as everyone else when we found out. And - and I'm the only one who's been lying to you. Spencer doesn't - he's not one of -"

"He knew! How come he got to know about you and I couldn't? Why? You couldn't trust me with your secret? I wasn't good enough? Does Patrick know too?" Ryan exclaimed, tears finally starting to leak out of his eyes.

Brendon looked horrified, then like he might burst into tears. "Ryan," he whispered. "It was nothing against you. You always said about how superhumans freaked you out, so I didn't want to do that to you. I didn't want to ruin our friendship. And Patrick doesn't know either... I would never do anything to hurt you Ryan." He tried to reach out a hand to place on Ryan’s shoulder, but Ryan simply stepped to the side, shrugging it off.

He swallowed, trying to stop crying. “Well, you failed at that. Clearly. Maybe if you actually _trusted_ me, you’d have learned why I thought that way.” He paused, ignoring the way his voice was shaking. Tearing his eyes away from Brendon’s fallen face, he ran a hand through his hair before he whirled around, facing Jon. "What about you? What’s your excuse?" His started to flutter as he looked at Jon, effectively betraying him.

With his hands shoved in his pockets, looking guilty, Jon simply shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

Drawing in a ragged breath, Ryan felt exposed. He wished Spencer and Brendon would leave. He didn't need for them to see every single one of his insecurities. They’d already found out enough about him today; they didn’t deserve to know more. In a softer, sadder tone, Ryan asked "Was any of it real? Or was it all just some ploy to get me to join your superhero team?"

Jon took a step closer to him, frowning. "Of course it was real, Ryan. Why would you think-"

"Because the night after we sleep together you decide to spring this whole thing on me. So it's pretty much looking like you thought that if you got me in bed, you could get me on your side," Ryan said, the harshness returning to his voice. He laughed bitterly, looking away from Jon. “Like I was some cheap lay…”

Jon paled, shaking his head furiously. "Ryan, I was going to tell you everything today. And maybe I should've done it sooner, but I never thought our meeting at the coffee shop was going to lead to this. You have to believe me. I never thought I was going to fall-"

The smile fell off of Ryan’s face, his teeth gritted into a snarl. He took another step towards Jon, barely a few inches from him “Don’t you dare say what I think you were about to. _Don’t you dare_. You don’t get to.” He jabbed Jon forcefully in the shoulder, even though he would’ve liked to punch him in the face. But that just would’ve led to a big mess, and he probably would’ve ended up breaking his hand…it would’ve gotten ugly. Jon watched him the entire time, not saying a word. Ryan sighed finally, his head falling. "This is why I don't fall for people. Because something like this happens."

In a flurry of motion, Jon threw his arms onto Ryan’s shoulder, bringing him closer than before. “Ryan, _please_ ,” he implored. “You have to believe me. I didn’t want to ruin this…”

Ryan started to laugh. “Oh, so your excuse for not telling me is that you didn’t want to ruin this relationship? One that was completely built on lies and me believing you were someone else. You were trying to protect me…by lying to me? And now I’m supposed to trust you. Wow, you really are a good catch…”

With a quick shove he pushed Jon away from him, followed by pushing Brendon and Spencer aside. Before he reached the door, he turned on his heel and face them. "You know, all this time, I was afraid to tell you guys about the whole weather thing. Cause I didn't want _my friends_ to be scared of me. So this whole time, I was worrying about your feelings, while you all have had no regard for mine. It's nice to know that..."

Feeling like he was going to burst into tears at that moment, he almost ran from the room and slammed the door behind him, ignoring the chorus of them calling his name.

:: ::

  
So maybe getting intoxicated when you have powers over fire isn't the best idea ever. And maybe getting drunk before noon isn't such a hot one either.

But Jon had fucked up big time. And he knew it. Not only did he probably scare Ryan away from ever joining the team, but he'd lost him completely. Knowing that hurt. It was like his heart was ripped apart.

Stumbling slightly as he wandered over to the stage area in the park where the music festival was taking place, he knew Mark and Pete weren't going to be very sympathetic to his emotional problems. Mark was all business, and ever since Pete had found Patrick, he wasn't exactly the most sensitive person. So he was on his own.

No one understood. No one cared.

Practically falling over himself as he found a bench by the stage, he was enjoying the pity party he was throwing for himself. It felt good to know that there revel in his misery. Otherwise, he'd have to face up to his mistakes, and fuck knows he wasn't ready to do that...

"JWalk?" a voice asked, somewhat recognizable.

Jon turned his head, his vision swimming a bit before he was able to focus on the figure in front of him. "Sean! Hey, how's it going?" he exclaimed excitedly, his voice slurring all of his words together. He enthusiastically extended a hand out to Sean.

Sean looked at him warily before breaking out in a huge grin. "Jonny, isn't it a little early to be hitting the bottle?"

"Pssh, no," Jon replied before promptly falling over. Sean laughed before extending a hand to him, pulling him to his feet and supporting him until they were backstage.

Jon, now sitting on an amp across from Sean, looked around. They were going through sound checks and wardrobe checks and every other kinda of fucking checks you could come up with.

"Where's Tom?" Jon asked. He really fucking missed that kid. They had been best friends back in high school, and grown apart towards the end of their senior years. Then out of the blue, Tom called him up and told him about the show.

Sean stopped laughing about something and raised an eyebrow, looking genuinely confused. "What?"

"Tommy. Where's he at? Aren't you going on soon?" Jon asked, a headache starting to creep in around his temples. He could really use some ibuprofen, or some common sense.

"Jon, what are you talking about? Tom left the band almost a year ago," Sean replied, leaning forward.

"No, no. He called me the other day. He told me about the show. Why would he do that if he quit the band?" Jon said with a chuckle, shaking his head. Why would Sean tell him Tom quit the band, when he obviously didn't? Jon wasn't stupid... he may be drunk, but not stupid.

Sean's face didn't falter. He pointed over Jon's shoulder to boy who looked like he wasn't a day over twenty, with curly blond hair and dark rimmed glasses. "That's Evan. He's our replacement bassist. Tom isn’t in the band."

Jon watched the way Evan fiddled with the bass, and the way he strummed out chords and everything. He turned back to Sean, who was giving him a concerned look.

"Jonny, what did Tom say to you?"

He stopped, thinking back to the conversation that they'd had on the phone a few days ago. When he had answered the phone, he hadn’t thought twice about how strange it was to talk to Tom after years of not communicating with him.

"He - he told me that we needed to catch up, so we talked for a while. He told me about the band, and his new job, while I told him about my friend Ryan... which he was really interested in. And then he said I should bring Ryan to the show so they could meet..." As the words slipped off his tongue, they started to sound more and more suspicious, even to him.

"So where's this Ryan kid?" Sean asked, looking around.

"He and I had a fight. I...I lied to him. I fucked up,” Jon responded, dropping his head in embarrassment as the memories from this morning came back to him.

Sean smirked, leaning back lazily on the amp he was currently lounging on. "Hmm, maybe that's where Tommy is. Pouncing while he has the chance." He began to laugh at what he thought was a funny joke, but Jon didn't respond, the tone in the air beginning to sober him up and leave him with just a massive headache.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It seemed like Tom really wanted to meet this kid, that's all."

Jon’s breath caught in his throat. The call out of the blue, the fact that the two of them would be together, Tommy’s sudden interest in Ryan…it was all screaming _traptraptrap_ to Jon. He had jumped off the amp and was booking it out of the park. Sean was shouting at him, but Jon ignored him, suddenly sober and his heart pounding in his chest.

 _Not stupid_ , who the fuck was he kidding? He was about to lead Ryan to Maja. He had to find him. He ran out of the park, his legs flying underneath him. With no idea where he was going, what the hell he was doing, or what the fuck he was going to say to Ryan when he found him – _‘Oh hey, yeah, remember how I epically fucked you over with your friends this morning? Well, you’re not going to believe this, but I may have also handed you off to the evil supervillain who wants to become part of his villainous army! Oops!_ ’ – Jon just knew that he had to find Ryan before Tommy did. Slowing to a jog as he approached the corner that separated the two streets with a dead end, he stopped, taking a breath as he tried to think where to look. He wouldn’t be at the apartment. He wouldn’t be at class. He wouldn’t be-

“…the bookstore,” he muttered to himself, as he started to take a step forward.

He was stopped halfway through his crossing the street, someone grabbing out to reach onto his shoulder. “Excuse me, do you think you could help me?” Instinctively, Jon turned around. He didn’t even have time to react before the fist collided with his face, sending him flying through the air and into the dead end alley. And then there was nothing.

:: ::

  
When Jon opened his eyes, he found himself in the back of the alleyway, hidden from sight by a bunch of garbage cans and large cardboard boxes. The upper half of his body was slightly propped up against the wall while the other was laying on the ground. His head was throbbing. As he reached up to grab it, his fingers lightly brushed a spot on his head that made him wince and yell out in pain. When he pulled his fingers away, they were slick with blood.

“Good morning, princess,” someone snickered from beside. Jon jumped slightly, whacking his head against the wall. He winced before he found his view of the street blocked. Looking up, he found the person he had least wanted to.

"Tommy?" he groaned, running a hand over his face.

With a laugh that sounded slightly demonic, Tom stepped towards Jon. He was grinning, looking like some fucking Cheshire Cat. "The one and only." He crouched down next to Jon, pressing two fingers up against the wound on Jon's temple, an expression of what looked like concern on his face. In a flash, the concern was gone, replaced by the evil cat grin. His head exploded in a fiery white hot pain as Tom punched him so hard, his vision blacked out around the edges, swimming in and out of focus for a good minute.

"That'll teach you..."

Jon coughed, and was pretty sure he tasted blood. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his brain was trying to formulate some sort of escape plan. He could always set Tom on fire or something along those lines, but that required energy and focus, and with the way Jon felt right now, he didn't have either one. Plus, this was Tom. Fucking crazy as he was, Jon couldn't see past the fact that this was still Tommy Conrad. This was the boy that that he had started a band with, had stayed up every weekend with playing video games in middle school with, got drunk for the first time with, and even though they never talked about it, had shared his first real kiss with. He very well couldn't kill him.

Tom grabbed him under the arms, pulling him to his feet. His limbs felt heavy and unattached to his body, and immediately his head flopped to his shoulder. He tried to protest the movement, but all the came out of his mouth was a strangled string of consonants. Jon wanted to yell at Tommy, although he didn't know what he was angrier at him for; for finding out that Tom was trying to set up Ryan to become one of Ryan's lackeys, or for becoming a bad guy altogether.

"What - what happened, T?" Jon finally managed to stutter out, his voice coming out in a raspy garble. He wished Tom would let go of him, take a step back from him, but when he looked down, he saw that Tom was supporting most of his weight.

A smirk twitched onto Tom's face before he laughed darkly. "Where have you been? While you've been out saving the world, I've come to realize the true power that exists in the world. And it's certainly not with you and your do-good butt buddies." Tightening his hand around Jon's throat, he slammed Jon's head back against the wall again.

It wasn't until Tom's face came back into focus that Jon realized he had blacked out. "Only you had to go and fuck everything up by not bringing your little friend to the park... so I'll just have to go and find him on my own." Tom sighed, beginning to frown. A look of question passed over his face, as if he was confused. He turned to face Jon again. "After I'm done with you, of course."

"Don’t – don’t touch him." At this point, Jon's head felt like it was going to explode. His head was pounding so much, it seemed like maybe his skull was getting ready to burst.

Tom smirked, shaking his head. "Well, maybe if you hadn’t screwed the plan, Jonny. Both of you were supposed to join Maja. But you fucked up Jonny, because you didn’t bring him. So now, I’ve got to go find him.”

“Leave him alone. You have me,” Jon slurred, which really didn’t help for sounding intimidating. “I’ll do what you want, just leave him out of this.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Tom cocked his head. A light bulb then seemed to go off in his head. “Aw, Jonny’s in love. How fucking poetic. He’s trying to save the boy.” If Jon could actually feel his limbs, he would’ve kneed Tom in the balls by now. But hey, not being able to feel your own limbs was no big deal, right?

“Here’s what’s gonna happen. You will join Maja, and there's nothing you'll be able to do about it. Because you won't have a choice. I'm going to erase all your memories of your past life and fabricate ones of your new one," he sneered. “Then, we’re going to go and find your little boy toy, and you’ll watch as we kill him, but you won’t remember him, so you won’t do anything. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” Tom asked, his voice suddenly lowering to a whisper as he ran a finger down the side of Jon's face. “Just you and me, Jonny. Like always, like it had been.”

Flashbacks of Tom and Jon rushed into Jon's head, overwhelming him and making him cry out. It was everything he had remembered from before, and then some. There were images of Tom and him getting high together, playing guitar together, watching TV together... and then ones that Jon didn't remember. There were some ones of kissing in the back of Tommy's pick up truck, and then one down in Jon's basement where all he could see was a tangle of exposed limbs. Jon knew the latter ones had never happened, but - but they looked so realistic. Every detail, every sound, every movement was perfect; just like it was supposed to be. He tried to resist what Tom was doing - he knew it wasn't real, but it just... it seemed so. So right. He let them absorb him, falling deeper and deeper into them.

"Fuckin, fuckfuckfuck," was all he could hear, but it didn't matter. All he could see was his memories of being back in high school. Everything was so much simpler; there was no worry of having to save the world, of getting along with the others, of being alone all the time, of worrying what everyone else thought. He was happier, and his only chance for happiness now had walked out on him.

He could faintly smell something burning, but he was too lost in his own memories to even comprehend what was happening around him. Flashes of his mother, of his friends, of his time working at Starbucks, of Cassie... they were all moving like a whirlwind in his head, and Jon was just sinking and sinking faster into them. They were comforting. He thought he heard someone calling his name, but he must've been imagining it. Unsure if Tom had let go of him or it just felt like he had, Jon had the sensation he was falling. Slowly, the feeling stopped, along with the rush of memories. Hands grabbed at him, gently caressing his head and over his arms.

He tried to open his eyes, but it wouldn't work. He was just too tired. And this time, it was easier to let go than to hold on

  
:: ::

 

When he finally did open his eyes, it was raining softly; his clothes were damp and sticking to his skin in the mid afternoon heat. Extremely disoriented, he couldn't remember where he was, how he'd gotten there, what had happened...

Trying to sit up, he groaned as he found that he couldn't. Someone was holding him down.

"Hey. Calm down, I'm pretty sure you have a concussion. I've been trying to wake you up for the past hour. I'm no doctor, but I know passing out with a concussion isn't good." As soon as Jon heard the voice, there was no disorientation for him. He tipped his head back a little more, seeing that Ryan was looking down at him, his eyes soft and his lips slightly turned up.

Jon stared at him, his mouth suddenly going dry. "What. Me. What're you?"

Ryan chuckled softly, his hands tenderly pushing Jon's hair out of his face. "I went down to that music festival you told me about because I wanted to confront you. Which is where I met your friend Sean, who told me you were drunk and muttering about your friend Tom before you ran like hell out of there. I mean, to anyone with a normal IQ, it sounded pretty fucking suspicious, so I lingered in the area. And that's when I heard Tom talking to you...about me."

Tearing his eyes away from Ryan, Jon remembered. He remembered everything. The fact that he was going to give in so willingly to Tom, and just because Tom had filled his head with fake stories of things that had never happened.

“Whatever happened back there, you may have saved my life.”

"Why are you here?" Jon asked simply, still not looking at Ryan. He really wasn't ready for Ryan to confront him again. And fuck knows he couldn't watch Ryan walk away too. But he didn't know any other way to convince Ryan he meant what he said...

With a frown, Ryan pulled his hand away. He sat silent for a moment, staring down at his hands and looking uncomfortable. "No matter how hard I tried to, I couldn't do it." Feeling Ryan begin to shake underneath him, Jon froze. He placed his hands on the asphalt underneath him, and pushed himself up into a sitting stance despite the fact he felt like he was going to drop dead. Taking a shaky breath, Ryan turned to face Jon, who was watching him intently. "I couldn't stay mad at you. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that you had ruined my friendship with my roommates and broken my heart and destroyed everything I built up and were responsible for global warming," Ryan told him, to which Jon smiled at the last part. "I knew I was lying. Because you're probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me, and - and I can't keep living in fear of myself."

Hearing the tone of his voice change, Jon thought that at this point, Ryan was more likely convincing himself that telling Jon the truth. "I've been miserable with my abilities for years, turning people away because I was scared to get close to anyone in fear that I might hurt them. Now, I'm finally happy, and...when I saw you before, it was so fucking scary. You were there, but you weren’t. It was like you couldn’t see me, and all I could think of was how I didn’t want the last thing that happened between the two of us to be a fight.” Jon looked away, a strange feeling of guilt washing over him. The thought of what had happened sent a chill up his spine, and he couldn’t imagine seeing it firsthand. Finally, Ryan inhaled deeply, looking at Jon. “I don't want to lose that happiness – lose _you_ over something stupid like this."

It was starting to rain harder, the drops coming down in big splashes that left drop marks on their clothes and left their hair damp. Jon glanced up at the sky, which was grey with clouds. He looked further out into the open street, where people were hurrying around with newspapers held over their heads, scurrying for cover. At the edge of the wall, Tom laid unconscious with obvious scorch marks on him. Jon found himself grinning as he turned back to Ryan. "Did - did you do that?"

Ryan tuned pink, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah... I certainly wasn't going to try and take him on. No thanks. So I did the best I could at the moment's notice," he answered with a smile, looking up at the sky.

"Which was a thunderstorm? You hit him with lightning?" Jon laughed incredulously. Ryan simply answered with a shrug, but his cheeks were a pinkish hue. "Don't try and act all humble, that's the fucking coolest thing I've ever heard!"

Without even thinking of the fact that maybe Ryan still was pissed at him (or the fact that his brain still was practically rattling around in his head) Jon tackled Ryan, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him in for a kiss. Ignoring the fact that Ryan immediately tensed against him, Jon hugged him tighter instead.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "You have no fucking idea how sorry I am." And he realized then and there that he could go into all the detail and why he didn't do it right away and how it was hard and blah blah blah, but it didn't matter. Jon didn't really care about it, so why would Ryan? Cupping the side of Ryan's face in his hand, Jon mumbled against his lips, "I don't want to lose you, either." And with that, like he'd said the magic words, Ryan relaxed and melted into the touch, kissing him back harder than ever before.

 **.ryland.**  
Being a superhero was hard. Anyone that Ryland knew could admit to that. Having to deal with secret identities and weaknesses and powers spinning out of control – oh, and _never having money_? Yeah, pretty fucking hard.

However. None of that compared to what Ryland was currently going through. Because having to watch the person you’re closest to in the world slowly crumble, slowly break down from within? And not be able to do a thing about it? He’d take being a superhero any day over that. With every day that passed, Alex got worse. And with every day, he reminded Ryland of the promise that he had made to not tell anyone. Biting down on his tongue, Ryland would agree, and only hold onto him tighter as he cried out in the midst of one of his endless nightmares.

But slowly, Ryland realized, there was a lot worse shit going on with Alex than the nightmares.

“So which of the movies do you want to watch?” was all he had asked. It was a simple question that could’ve been answered with one of the movies, or the other. He knew which one he wanted to watch, but he liked letting Alex pick…

“I mean, you clearly want to watch _Wedding Crashers_ which I don’t understand why, considering that we’ve already seen it about thirty-seven…” Slowly his voice trailed off. Ryland could only stare back at him, the room filled with a strangely new feeling of tension. Through all the years, that had never happened. Alex swore it would never happen.

“Did you just read my mind?” Ryland whispered, taking a step back from the table, because he suddenly felt so off, so angry, so exposed.

Alex lifted his head slowly, his expression just as surprised as how Ryland was feeling. “Ry, I didn’t. I don’t. I didn’t mean to. I swear…” he whispered. “It just… it just happened. I don’t even know…” From where he was standing, Ryland could see that Alex was now shaking, clearly terrified. He took a step closer, wrapping an hand around his wrist.

“Hey. It’s okay. It’s not that big of a deal. You’re probably just tired…” Ryland lied, wondering if this had ever happened before.

After that, Alex found that he couldn’t stop reading people’s minds. Random thoughts that people had – they just popped up into his head and he couldn’t seem to stop them. He told Ryland, telling him how he was scared and how he wondered if finally his powers were going to get the best of him… Ryland could only mutter disagreements, knowing that the right thing to do was to tell Mark and Pete what the fuck was going on.

But when Alex would fall asleep next to him, his fingers still wrapped in Ryland’s and his breathing slowly evening out, just in those few precious moments of peace before the nightmares overtook him… Ryland realized that he couldn’t do it.

You can’t betray the person you’ve fallen in love with; you just can’t.

 **.patrick &pete.**  
“Can ask you a question?” Pete said, desperately trying to get to the rest of his Slurpee as him and Patrick walked through the park. Patrick shrugged, chewing on the end of his straw. “Why did you finally agree to start seeing me? I mean, the day I came into your bedroom I thought you were going to call the cops on me… but then everything changed. You _changed_.”

Patrick laughed at that. “True. I do remember that, and I was. But, as we sat there, I don’t know, I got to thinking that you saved my life, which I can’t be mad at. And even more, you’re so fucking desperate for me too? I’m not really sure what happened, but I had fun, and it just kinda exploded from there..”

“Uh, excuse me. If I remember correctly, there was no me being desperate when I REVEALED MY FUCKING SECRET IDENTITY TO YOU. And since when do you go on dates with random superheroes who save your life?” Pete said with a grin.

“I’m not really sure what I was thinking then. Must have been all the smoke inhalation. Because really, any other day and you would’ve been out of luck,” Patrick chuckled.

Pete looped an arm over his shoulder, pulling him closer. “I’m glad that we both got to share in your near-death experience, then.” As then sidewalk ended, they approached a playground. The corner of Pete’s mouth tugged up as he grabbed onto Patrick’s hand, pulling him towards a jungle gym.

Pete, making sure no one was around first, showed off his super strength by wrapping an arm around Patrick’s waist and pulling them both to the top with his other hand. Adjusting himself on the bar, Patrick found himself grinning - no, _beaming_ \- at Pete. He'd never felt like this before. Granted, he never really let himself get close in this way to people. He had Brendon, Spencer and Ryan, but other than that, there was no one else he had. Pete was different. Pete was...Pete.

He thought back to that night when Pete had snuck into his bedroom, and wondered what today would've been like if he had stuck to his guns and said no. This feeling - it was dizzying and exciting and made his heart beat out of control and his toes curl - it was **amazing**. Looking up, he saw Pete smiling softly at him, like he knew some secret.

Before Patrick could even say anything, Pete had reached across the way, his hand caressing Patrick's jaw line. Feeling the muscles in his neck practically melt, Patrick willed himself not to make a fool of himself, but he didn't know how much that was going to help. With Pete's thumb rubbing over his cheek, and the rest of the long fingers slowly tangling and twisting themselves in his, Patrick melted into the touch.

Pete closed the gap between them. Their faces were less than an inch apart now; Patrick could feel Pete's breath brush across his cheek, smelling faintly of cherries. As Pete trailed his thumb over Patrick's lower lip, he smiled again before replacing the thumb with his mouth. Smiling into the kiss, Patrick opened his mouth and felt Pete's tongue gently slide in.

"Wow...hey dude, your girlfriend's pretty hot."

Jerking away so fast that it almost sent Patrick flying, Pete looked to the bottom of the jungle gym, where he found two preteen boys, their mouths hanging open and their faces in shock. Pete looked at himself before looking at Patrick. With his tight jeans, chin length straight strawberry hair under his hat and short stature, Pete almost burst out laughing. He looked to the boys before pointing to Patrick, who looked horrified. The boys nodded slowly, still looking astonished. Burying his face into Pete's neck, Patrick turned away so they wouldn't see him laugh.

:: ::

  
"So do I get to ask you something now?" Patrick asked, kicking the dirt below him with one of his sneakers. The two of them had relocated to the swing set, where they wouldn't be tempted to get closer, and hopefully Patrick wouldn't be mistaken for a girl.

"Shoot."

"What's it like? Being a superhero and all?"

Twisting the chains despite the sign that said 'Please DO NOT twist swings' Pete began to spin around on the swing. "It's pretty awesome, I have to admit that. When I found out that I was different than everyone else, you know, like that I could fly and lift my house off the ground with one finger, I knew there was two options. I could be a superhero. Or join the circus. And clowns scare the shit out of me, so that really only left me with one," he said, stopping the twisting as it began to double up. He let go and let himself begin to spin around.

"So why do you do, besides you the fact that you can?"

"Well, there are lots of perks. Everyone knows my face. Everyone knows who I am, so I'm pretty much a local celebrity. There are lots of perks behind that. And getting your picture in the paper every now in then is nice. I don't really know, I do what I want to when I want to. The guys and I do as we please, and we're there when the public needs us. The myth about superheroes all wanting women and fast cars and drugs and shit - it's a lie. All we usually want is a pizza."

Patrick laughed at that. It was refreshing to know that real life superheroes were different than the ones in his old comic books. That they weren't all perfect, with flawless girlfriends, excessive amounts of money, or extremely successful jobs. They lived all together in a big house, ate junk food, and clearly dated nerdy college music students. "So no weaknesses either?" Patrick joked, beginning to swing a little bit. He expected a laugh from Pete, who say something witty and make Patrick fall for him even more.

Instead, Pete stopped swinging, his face falling. "Not really."

"What is it?"

"No hero has any biological weaknesses. You know, like Clark Kent and krypton. But each hero can have another sort weakness, whether it's emotional or mental. Like you remember what I told you about Gabe and William. That would be considered an emotional weakness, for one another. Bad guys figure it out and then use it to exploit the hero...Every hero has one" he said trailing off.

"Every hero?" he repeated, feeling his heart pound against his ribs.

Pete nodded. "Usually - usually it's a person. A family member, a friend..." he trailed off before looking up at Patrick, wincing. "A girlfriend or boyfriend," he whispered, watching as Patrick, fumbled for something to say but couldn't figure it out.

When he finally could, he looked down at himself before at Pete. "You...your weakne...me?" he stammered before wiping a hand over his face.

Pete shrugged. "I don't know. I'll never know." Patrick looked at him indignantly. "At this point in time, however, yes."

The two stayed silent, which was making Pete really uncomfortable. "Don't worry about it. It's never going to happen. It's just you and me now." He reached over and placed a hand onto Patrick's shoulder, which seemed to go unnoticed. “I mean, it’s all in a day’s work. You know, being a superhero and all…” Pete replied with a laugh, stretching his arms over his head. He grabbed onto the chains of the swings before he began to pump. “Come on, I bet I can go higher than you!”

Patrick just sat there, watching him with an unreadable expression on his face. Eventually, Pete noticed that Patrick wasn’t doing anything, so he stuck the heels of his Chuck Taylors into the sand and skidded to a stop. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t do this.”

With a braying laugh, Pete jumped off the swing and got behind Patrick’s taking hold of the chains. “Sure you can! Just take hold of the chains.” As Pete began to push him, Patrick jumped off, throwing the swing backwards.

“I fucking know how to swing Pete. I meant _this_. You and me. I can’t do it. I – I just can’t.”

In a matter of a second, Pete deflated, all the energy and air seemingly sucked out of him. He stared at Patrick, who was toeing the sand. “What? Why?”

When he noticed that Pete was watching him, it was like a flip switched on his brain. Patrick placed his hands on his hips dramatically, sighing loudly. He tried to figure something out quickly.

“Because…because - you’re not a real hero. All you’re in it for is for the fame and the glory. You said it yourself! You're the _local celebrity_! All the pictures in the papers! And if you’re not doing this for the right reasons, then what the fuck am I doing here? I thought you were real, Pete. I thought you were different...” He had more he wanted to say - he had wanted to tell him the truth, but as each lie spewed out of his mouth, he felt a lump in the back of his throat grow more and more.

“I don’t-”

“I just can’t do this anymore, Pete. You’re a liar and a poser, and I thought you were different. I can’t live like this, knowing that I could become another one of your vulnerabilities.” As the last part slipped out of his mouth, Patrick quickly turned away from Pete, before Pete could figure the rest out. He ran from the park before anything else could happen, his sneakers slapping against the ground, leaving Pete standing there in disbelief of what had just happened.  
 **.brendon &spencer.**  
"He actually said that?" Brendon asked incredulously, stopping midway before picking up Pete's untouched coffee that had been sitting on the counter for the past hour and a half.

"Yes! That's what I've been trying to tell you! I don't know where he got that all from! I mean, do I act like some egotistical hero? Do I give off bad vibes? And not B.O. or something…" Pete was in the middle of pacing around their apartment, desperately waiting for Patrick to come home, although it was almost 10:00 and he hadn't shown up yet.

As Brendon finally grabbed the mug and dumped the contents down the sink, he shook his head. "That's not what I'm talking about. He said he didn't want to 'be your vulnerability'? He said that exactly?"

Pete shrugged, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I guess so. But I’m not talking about that. Are you even listening? Seriously, am I giving off bad vibes. Because we were getting along fine, we kissed on the jungle gym-"

Laughter erupted from Spencer, who was currently collapsed onto the couch after shutting off the lights in the kitchen. Clutching onto his sides, he was shaking with delight as he finally manage to stutter out "What, are you two like in the third grade? Did you pull his hair first? Carve his initials into your desk?"

"Can you be serious for like, I don't know, a minute? I'm having a crisis! What did I say that turned him off?"

The door of the apartment opened, causing Pete to practically leap across the hallway with glee and into the den, only to come shuffling back into the living room a few moments later, grumbling how "It's only Jon."

Brendon rolled his eyes and got the door that Pete had just slammed in Jon’s face, while Spencer simply shook his head before placing it into his hands. Leading Jon into the living room, Brendon showed him to the other chair before curling up next to Spencer on the couch that clearly wasn’t big enough for two people.

"What's your issue?" Jon drawled, watching as Pete continued to pace along the floor.

"My issue?! Issue! Your mom has issues!”

Jon smirked. “‘Your mom’ jokes…always know that we’ve hit a nerve when Pete busts those out. Is Ryan here?” he asked before turning to Brendon and Spencer.

Brendon chuckled, laying his head back against Spencer’s shoulder, who closed his eyes after continually watching Pete walk back and forth. “He’s not. He’s spending the night on campus. Has a big midterm tomorrow or something. He wanted you to text him, though. I think he had something to ask you.”

“What, did we just forget about my problem? Hello, I was here first. My problems rank supreme,” Pete exclaimed, waving his hands up and down, which caused the other three to burst into laughter.

Still leaning heavily against Spencer, Brendon sighed. “It seems like he’s scared, Pete. He doesn’t want things to get too serious with you.”

Pete stopped pacing, and Spencer was pretty sure that he noticed that the carpet looked a little worn out where Pete had just been walking. “But he said…”

Brendon groaned, pushing himself into a sitting position. “It doesn’t matter what he said. This sudden burst of angry emotions came after you just happened to mention that he might be your only weakness? Pete, you scared him. We all know being a superhero isn’t fucking easy. How do you think it feels to know that you’re the one person that might end up leading to their downfall?”

“It sucks,” Spencer stated softly from his position, slowly looking up and meeting Brendon’s eyes, who immediately turned away. With that, the atmosphere in the room changed.

“What are you two talking about?” Pete whispered, lowering himself into the chair next to Jon, his face so open it looked like it might shatter.

Jon stayed still, biting down on his bottom lip as he felt the tension that had been swirling around Spencer and Brendon suddenly expand to the rest of them. “You two…have experience? That you’ve never mentioned?” Still not looking at any of them or speaking, Brendon curled in on himself, laying his head down on the arm of the couch. Spencer sat forward.

“It was when Bren and I had just starting rooming together. Before – before we were actually _together_. This was all before Ivarsson and her group of superfreaks had shown up, and you guys mostly dealt with common criminals,” Spencer explained softly, really interested in the palm of his hand as he wouldn’t look up from it.

“Morris and Salpeter were still on the street, but they knew they were bound to get caught soon. This was when it was just you two, Bren, Frank, Mark and Tom. They found out that Brendon and I lived together, and that I wasn’t…like you guys. I don’t know how, but they came here and – and they kidnapped me, using the threat of torture to draw Brendon out, which worked.” By this point, Brendon had covered his head with his arms, as if he trying to block out the rest of the story. The soft shakes coming from him were easily noticed.

“I was there for two weeks before they told Brendon. I was unconscious for most of it, but I survived. They’d been planning on killing both of us, but-”

“But we caught them,” Jon finished softly, still looking at Spencer. Pete was staring at the floor, looking extremely pale. “I don’t get it. We never saw you there, Spencer.”

“Because I made sure you didn’t,” Brendon finally added. “I didn’t want you all to find out that Spencer knew about our group and our secrets until I was sure that everything was ready. And it wasn’t then. So I took care of everything. I made sure he was okay on my own…” he trailed off, closing his eyes in a useless attempt to try to block out the flashes from the memories. He felt Spencer’s hand enclose itself around his without a word. When he opened his eyes, he realized that Jon and Pete were both gone, but Spencer was still there, attached to his hand.

“I’m sorry I brought that up,” he muttered softly, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand. “I forgot about-”

Brendon sighed. “Don’t be sorry. It’s – it’s just one of those things, you know? I know it’s been almost two years, but it’s one of those things that I’ll never be able to get out of my head, Spence. Just knowing – knowing what they did to you…what they might have done to you if we were late…” Brendon’s voice hitched into a hiccup. He felt boneless as Spencer wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling him into a hug from behind.

“Bren, it’s alright. I’m here, and I’m fine. And if – if it hadn’t happened, then we probably wouldn’t have happened, either,” Spencer responded thoughtfully, wriggling around until he was comfortable underneath Brendon.

“Yeah. I know.” Brendon pecked a kiss onto Spencer’s cheek before snuggling in closer. “You get kidnapped and tortured, and your consolation? You get me…” he muttered sarcastically. “What a prize.”

“I wouldn’t have had it any other way,” Spencer whispered truthfully. He wasn’t sure if Brendon could hear him, but honestly, he didn’t care.

  
 **.alex &ryland.**  
Ryland hadn’t meant to hurt Alex.

All he wanted was to make sure that he was okay. Ever since Alex had had the first nightmare about Maja over three weeks ago, his entire personality had changed. He was withdrawn, moody, easy to anger, and quick to outburst. His powers ranged from being completely out of control in the house (they’d had to replace every single light bulb at least once) to completely under control. He was worried about him. He never thought that what he was doing would end up translating to Alex as betrayal. But before he could stop it from happening, he had told everything to Pete and Mark.

After that, it was spiraling out of control. They were then talking about how Alex in this state was now a detriment to the team, and if they were going to keep him here, things needed to be changed. They threw around words like _psychotherapy, psychological restraints, and psychiatric rehab_. Ryland had no idea what any idea what they mean, but they sounded like they were going to hurt him. Suddenly he felt like he had made a mistake. He tried to backtrack as fast as possible.

“Alex,” Pete said softly, noticing that he had come into the room. Alex stopped by the doorway, looking at all three of them before his eyes settled on Ryland as if to ask what was happening. Ryland tore his eyes away, cleared his mind, put up mental walls; anything that would stop Alex from reading his thoughts. He couldn’t believe he was thinking that even – Alex had sworn to him and the others years ago that he would never _ever_ read their minds without telling them. What was he doing? They’d been friends for over ten years, and he chose the time that Alex was most vulnerable to betray and hurt him the most.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked eventually, his voice growing in anger.

“Alex. We know. About everything. We want to help you,” Mark said cautiously, putting up his hands in a sign of innocence, as if he thought Alex was going to hurt him. Ryland wanted to punch him. He couldn’t believe that this was how they were going to treat him. He came to them looking for help; wanted them to fix Alex. He didn’t want them to treat him like a monster…

Alex’s face dropped. “Ryland, what did you do?” he asked, his voice scared as he backed up, trying to evade the others.

“I was just trying to help. Alex, you’re scared, I’m scared, you needed help.” He tried to sound as convincing as possible, but it wasn’t coming across.

“I can’t believe you…” he whispered, looking straight at Ryland. The tone of his voice quickly turned into one of anger. “After everything, I trusted you! You said, I could always trust you. You lied to me. And you…” Quickly his expression darkened, an appearance that didn’t suit him. “You betrayed me. I should’ve never let you in…never trusted you…never…”

Alex felt the words right there on his tongue, but he was shaking with anger and couldn’t even look at Ryland, let alone Pete and Mark, who were treating him like something that had escaped from District 9. Enraged, he stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him and prepared to never return to it. Walking out into the street, with no idea or intention of going anywhere specific, he knew that he needed to escape that house. He also knew that there was a good chance he wouldn’t be welcomed back into the house.

He couldn’t believe that…that liar. Who had comforted him and promised to keep his secrets and been with him through everything. He had even slept in the same fucking bed with him almost every night. And then went and lied to his face. He had already been treated like a freak by his family. They turned him away when he was practically still a kid, so he turned to what he thought was his only friend in the world. He didn’t want to feel like a misfit anymore, and when he was with Ryland, he didn’t. Until now. Now, he was just turned away by the only true family he’d had for the past five or so years…

Alex shoved his hands into his pockets, stomping down the sidewalk, making random turns and stepping past people. If he couldn’t trust Ryland, he couldn’t trust anyone. Already feeling his thoughts and emotions begin to spin out of control, for once, he didn’t care. If he was going to harm anyone, it would only be himself. He didn’t have to worry about hurting his so-called friends anymore. And if this was where his powers brought him, then so be it. He just needed an escape, and this was it.

He ended up on a bench in the city’s park, surrounded only by a few trees and couple of other vacant benches. The park was pretty empty. He sat there, watching the sun sink below the horizon in a mix of fiery oranges, pinks, and purples in hopes that the calmness of this would help to silence his mind.

The walls he had built up in his mind were usually good at blocking out other people’s thoughts so that he didn’t receive them in an ongoing loop. But the layers of walls he had built had just started to crumble. He couldn’t figure out what was causing this. More importantly, he didn’t know how to stop all the walls from coming down. Losing complete control of his powers was a fear of his, and even though he was trying to convince himself that if it happened right now, it was going to be okay – he knew it wasn’t. And admitting it was scary, because an admittance was a form of recognition… He began to think of all the damage that he could cause.

Rubbing his temples, he willed the buzzing pain in his head to go away. But the dull ache that started behind his eyes and continued all the way down to the back of his neck throbbed mercilessly. This was all Ryland’s fault… And yet, he knew it wasn’t. If it was anyone’s fault, it was his own. He had expected Ryland, who he wanted to care about him, to hold a secret like that with no problems? Switch their places, and Alex would’ve blabbed after the second day.

He needed Ryland in his life. He wanted Ryland to be here now. They had been apart less than an hour, and Alex already missed him. He knew that if they weren’t fighting, they’d be together, doing who the fuck knows what. Ryland wasn’t just some throwaway friend. He was all Alex had. Especially now, when the mere thought of Ryland made his stomach flip over. He needed Ryland now more than ever; to try to distract him from all of this with some stupid joke, to make fun of his haircut even though Ryland’s was more like an emo kid’s, to hold onto his hand and promise that everything would be okay even if he didn’t know.

Groaning, he put his head into both of his hands. The ache had quickly intensified into a roaring pain, ripping through his skull. He ground his teeth together to stop himself from screaming out in agony.

“If you had just listened to me in the first place, we could’ve avoided all of this.” The voice was soft and comforting, just like the hand that was on the back of Alex’s neck, rubbing soft circles. He turned his neck as much as he possibly could, finding Maja occupying the empty spot on the end of the bench.

“What…what-” was all he could manage to get out before another wave of pain washed over him. He pulled out of Maja’s touch and tried to stand up, but the pain knocked him to his knees. His vision swayed, threatening to black out, and for a moment, he thought he was going to be sick.

Feeling Maja’s hand grace his shoulder again, he couldn’t tell if the touch was meant to be comforting of threatening. “I warned you, Alexandro. I told you many times just how powerful you truly are. You could’ve made this easier by simply joining me. I could’ve helped you to prevent this pain. But, what’s done is done…” Her eyes darted over Alex’s shoulder, signaling to someone who was standing behind him.

Before Alex could protest, or even open his mouth, Butcher had his hand on the back of Alex’s neck. Then, slowly the pain in his head began to subside. With that, he also felt the last mental wall he had built up be torn down.

“You – you did this? You’ve been messing with my mind?” Alex mumbled through gritted teeth as thoughts of everyone in what felt like a four mile radius around flooded his head nonstop. He wasn’t sure what was more painful – the headache from before, or this.

All he heard was a laugh. “Of course. If you had joined me, this would have been on your own accord, you finding your true powers on your own terms. You made your choice, though. And I dealt with it by not giving you a choice in the matter.”

He couldn’t believe that he thought that it had been his own fault, when Maja had been the one provoking it. That he thought he was truly evil. More importantly, he was hurt that his friends had immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was losing it. They assumed that he hadn’t been strong enough to handle his powers. No one even suspected Maja’s interference.

“You’re too important of a player to lose. I couldn’t just stand back and watch you not use your potential. I may have broke down all those walls in your mind, but so be it.” She slipped her hand from Alex’s shoulder to under his chin, pulling him onto his feet with ease.

Alex felt vulnerable, alone, violated. His head felt like it weighed more than his entire body, and his limbs weren’t a part of his body. But as his mind began to overstimulate, spinning out of control, something clear began to shine through it. He could feel the energy of his powers practically crackling at his fingertips like electricity. The dim streetlights around them had begun to flicker uncontrollably before they exploded one after another, sending the street into a wave of darkness.

He realized it wouldn’t be long now. But with each passing moment, he felt something stronger take control in his mind. Something he’d never felt before. It was new, strong, powerful. It was _**dark**_. Pushing Maja’s hand away, he stood up on his own and smiled at him, feeling like he was no longer in control of his own body.

A low chuckle escaped from Maja’s throat. “That’s a good boy…”

:: ::

  
Ryland sat at the table in the kitchen of the loft, wringing his hands uncontrollably, watching the door. He shouldn’t still be sitting here. He should be out there, looking for Alex. And he would be, if Mark wasn’t preventing him by blockading the door so whenever someone left it set off the alarm. He needed to apologize. He needed to let him know that he hadn’t meant it like that. He needed to tell him everything…

“He’s going to be back…just give him some time.” Gabe came up behind, offering what looked like the most comforting smile that Gabe could offer. At least, to anyone who wasn’t William.

Ryland frowned, knowing that of all people, Gabe was the one who was going to be the least understanding or compassionate towards his troubles. “I fucked up. I fucked him over.”

Gabe stopped, furrowing his brows together. “Why would you say that?” He walked over to the fridge to pull out a beer, offering one to Ryland in the process.

Ryland shook his head, to which Gabe shrugged at before pulling out a chair and sitting down with Ryland at the table. “Because…because. I don’t know. I’ve always looked out for him, you know? Since we were younger… Well, he’s looked out for me too, I guess. But he’s been like a younger brother that I’ve never had. And the one time he actually asks me for help, asks me to do something for him, I fuck him over. He’s never going to forgive me.” With a pathetic moan, Ryland slumped over onto the table, face buried in his arms.

“What if? You’ll get over it.”

He shot up from the table in a flash, he eyes wide. “What?! You don’t think he’ll do that, do you? What do you know? Did he tell you something? And I won’t get over it! I can’t…” he yelled, slamming his hand down on the table. His head felt like it was spinning. There was just so much to think about. He hadn’t meant for it to go out of control like this. All he had wanted was to help Alex. He wasn’t sure if he could stand to watch any more of Alex’s self destructive behaviors, so the only thing he thought of was getting help. And now, look where it got him.

Smiling from behind the mouth of his bottle, Gabe leaned forward. “Why? What’s he got that the rest of us don’t?”

There was no way that Ryland could even begin to try to explain how special, how amazing Alex was. Compared to everyone else, he was smarter, funnier, kinder, prettier - When he realized what was happening, he took in a sharp intake of breath. He looked over at Gabe, who was grinning knowingly. “It’s not what you think,” Ryland tried weakly, but Gabe was still grinning. “I don’t, we don’t, he doesn’t-” He eventually gave up, knowing that he was lying. He ran a hand through his hair. Well. This was new.

“It’s alright, Pleasure Ryland. We’ve all been there at some point in our life. Lucky for you that you can realize it this soon. I didn’t fucking know what I was doing until, what, a week ago? At least you didn't almost kill Alex...” Gabe said before beginning to laugh.

Ryland grimaced, but the more he thought about it, the more he could see it. And the more he saw it, the more he wanted it to happen.

“Pete?! Pete?” Mikey ran into the room, a pair of headphones hanging loosely around his neck. “Where’s Pete?” he asked, his voice shaking. Gabe and Ryland simply shrugged. Mikey looked at Gabe and Ryland before practically pulling Gabe out of his chair. “You need to see this…I don’t even…we have to do something.”

Ryland watched them go before slowly following them out. As he passed over to the control room, he knew what he had to do once Alex came back. He had to prove that he could be trusted again. It didn’t matter if he had to forcibly hold him down and apologize – he was going to make Alex see that he cared about him. If he could do that, maybe then he could act on this new…feeling?

“I’ve never seen something like this. I don’t know what to do,” Mikey mumbled, biting on his thumbnail nervously. His face was lit up from the glow of the screen, easily showing the fear in his eyes. Gabe simply stared at the clip that played over and over on the screen, something tightening in his own chest.

“Who is that?” Ryland started before his voice died out, his eyes going wide. Gabe slowly turned to him, an expression of sympathy in his eyes.

On the screen was Alex, absorbed by his powers and holding the entire street captive. Just like what he had been scared of.

:: ::

  
“I don’t understand what the fuck is going on! How the fuck did Maja manage to get inside of Alex’s head and make him go dark side?” Jon yelled to William, who could only shrug.

“It was probably Butcher. That man could do whatever he wants. And he does whatever Maja wants,” he yelled back, trying to compete with the noise of the howling wind around them. This was the street of the footage that Mikey had shown them, which had left every single one of them speechless.

As they walked a bit further, they realized that certain locations were exactly from the footage. This was where Alex had been, holding everyone on the street hostage. But yet, here the street was – with no civilians, and more importantly, no Alex.

“There’s no one in a 3 block radius,” Brendon said, skidding to a halt and joining them. “There’s nothing. It’s completely empty. Apart from the winds and the lights, everything is normal.”

“I can’t find anything either. I don’t know what else to look for,” Pete said as he landed, looking pretty peeved. He turned to face the others, who were staring at him in hopes of some guidance. Which was one thing he really was failing at since his falling out with Patrick. “Are we sure that it was a legitimate clip? There’s nothing out of the ordinary, and no sign of-”

“What are you saying?”

Pete stopped, almost taking a step back. The snarling voice wasn’t what he expected. Or, more than that, from who he expected. “Are you saying that Alex isn’t it trouble? That he’s faking this? That he made this, as some sort of ploy? That-” Ryland growled, taking a step forward, closing the gap between him and Pete quickly. He jabbed Pete with his index finger each time he asked a question. Usually Pete wouldn’t take this type of rebelliousness from one of his team members. But it wasn’t everyday that one of your team members goes evil and decides to take the majority of the city hostage.

“No, I would never…” Pete stammered, putting up his shaking hands as a sign of innocence.

“The only reason this happened is because you and Hoppus drove him away! You fucking scared him when he needed help, and now look what you’ve done!”

Pete wanted to say that technically, it was Ryland’s fault for coming to them with the information, but he decided that maybe this wasn’t the best place to bring something like that up. Ryland began to say more things, but all Pete heard was Jon quietly say “Shit.” Looking over Pete’s shoulder, Ryland’s face slowly changed from one of anger to one of fear. He dropped his hand from Pete’s chest, taking a step back.

Pete turned around, although he already knew what was going to be behind him. At the end of the alley stood Alex, practically glowing with power. Arms out and palms facing up towards the sky, tips of his sneakers barely touching the asphalt, wind blowing around him in a weird cyclone of power. A collective gasp came from the others. It wasn’t exactly comforting to see him like that.

They stood there, staring silently for who knows how long before Alex lifted a finger, and a nearby tree uprooted itself from the ground, flying over and crashing right down in the middle of them. Before it had the chance to land, they scattered and tumbled around onto the pavements, dodging the tree.

“Suarez! We’re so not going to be friends anymore if you try to kill me!” William exclaimed

Silently, he lifted both of his hands, and fucking _floated_ over to them, which shut William up right away. Eventually he stopped in front of them, arms still outstretched and hair blowing gently. His eyes were glowing, making him look otherworldly.

“You dare try to challenge me? Tease my great powers with your insignificant ones? I would like to see the one who can best me,” he retorted smugly, a snicker passing over his lips.

“Dude, badass Alex is a fucking prick,” Gabe muttered. Without a word, Alex snapped his head to face Gabe, who suddenly paled. Simply by waving a few of his fingers, Alex lifted Gabe off the ground. For a minute, he was hanging there chilling. But as Pete looked closer, he noticed that Gabe’s chest was getting flatter, his breathing becoming shallower, his eyes becoming wider...

Alex was _crushing_ Gabe in midair. With a smirk on his face.

“Not friends anymore!” William yelled once he noticed what was happening, jumping off the ground and making a dash at Alex, who simply lifted his other hand. Both Gabe and William went flying a good hundred and fifty feet back where they landed in an unmoving heap. And just like that, the other five began running and trying to find cover. Pete realized that this was one of the first times in a while that they had been forced to take the defense in a fight. And it was against one of their own.

As he and Brendon jumped behind the wall of an alley, watching as Alex lifted Jon off the ground throwing him backwards repeatedly into a tree until he stopped moving, and watching as Frank dragged a stunned Ryland for cover under bench, shoving him under the seat when he didn’t move.

“What do we do now?” Brendon hissed at Pete, the dread apparent in his voice as he noticed Alex beginning his way down the street.

“We treat him like any other criminal,” Pete responded, although when it came out, it sounded more like he was asking Brendon than telling him what to do. He started to get into his attack ready stance.

With a confused look on his face, Brendon leaned back against the wall. “Are you serious? You want us to just take down Alex? I mean, he’s our friend. We don’t want to hurt him…”

Pete placed his head into his hands. Whoever had chosen him to be the leader of this team made a serious mistake. “Fuck, I have no idea! This was never covered in Being the Leader of a Group of Superheroes 101!”

Brendon gave him a sympathetic look, which was almost immediately replaced by one of pure terror as he saw Alex making his way towards Ryland and Frank. “I’ll - I’ll call Mark. You go make a distraction.”

Apart from feeling like a complete and total loser for having to get the plan from Mark and like a jerk for subjecting his teammates to possible dangers, he still had some beliefs that maybe Patrick was right. Maybe he wasn’t a real hero. Maybe that was why he was off his game. Because this wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing.

“Mark. We need help. How do we stop Alex without causing serious damage?” Pete said into the phone once Mark had picked up. He looked over his shoulder, watching as Alex was dragging Brendon around wherever he wanted. Frank was trying to do something with a force field, but before long, that plan was destroyed and he was in the air with Brendon too.

There was silence on the other end before Mark spoke up. “Knocking him out with all that energy forced upon to him could be dangerous. We could lose him in his mind forever. We need some way to weaken him first before you knock him out.”

Pete gasped, the idea suddenly forming in his head. “OH! I got it! OkayMarkthanksBYE!” he exclaimed before turning off the phone. See, this was why he was here. He may not be the sharpest crayon in the box or whatever – it just took some sharpening. Looking around the street, he was trying to find Ryland, hoping that he was still conscious. As he got to his feet and was ready to step out into the street, he found Ryland crouched down by very unsteady looking Brendon.

“Ryland!” He motioned for him to come over, who in turn, did so, running as fast as he could before Alex could get to him. When he finally reached Pete, Pete noticed that he looked like he was going to faint. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah, fine…” he mumbled before almost falling over.

Pete steadied him into a sitting position before raising a questioning eyebrow at him. Ryland sighed, looking down at the ground. “I can’t watch this any more. He’s – he’s all… and to watch you all try to hurt him is too hard, because I know he’s still in there. But then, to watch him as a completely evil psychopath is just as hard…”

With a sigh, Pete squeezed Ryland’s knee. “Alright, Ry. I know you’re having a rough time, but if we’re going to save Alex, I need your help.”

“Me?” Ryland asked, getting even paler than before if it was physically possible.

“Mark said if we knock Alex out with the excessive amounts of energy in him, we could lose him forever. But if you-” Pete began.

“You want me to drain all the energy from him? I could end up killing him,” Ryland said weakly, finishing Pete’s thought. He remembered when he had been experimenting with his powers when he first got them, and through the use of a few mice that inhabited his house, and one unfortunate stray cat that was always in his neighborhood, he’d come to learn that his powers didn’t work on living creatures. They killed them.

“And if you don’t do anything, one of us will have to hurt him. Most likely after he kills one of them…” Pete motioned out onto the street, where the others’ bodies littered the street like wet paper dolls. “Ryland. I know you care about him. I _know_. Right now, you’re his only hope. You can do this.”

Ryland sighed, looking back over his shoulder at what was Alex at one time, currently standing over Frank, who was wobbling unsteadily as he tried to get to his feet, wincing as he did so. The others had made no movement since they went down. He watched as Alex threw Frank through the glass window of a nearby store, the glass shattering around him on impact.

Pete noticed that Alex was slowly turning and coming towards them, a devious smirk on his face. Trying to ignore the blood that was thrumming in his ears, he tried to pull Ryland to his feet. “It’s either now or never. You do this, or Alex Suarez is lost forever. And we all die.”

Shutting his eyes, Ryland knew this was it. This was how he was going to prove to Alex that he cared – oh, fuck it, was in love with him and had been since he was 12. He was going to save his life.

He just hoped he could do it without killing him.

Watching as Pete ran out into the street, practically waving his arms at Alex as a piece of bait, Ryland hoped to whoever was listening that this fucking worked. He waited until he saw Alex occupied with Pete before he took a deep breath, focused, and extended his hand. Which, at this point, wasn’t really that easy since the winds had picked up, to the point that they were so strong where Ryland felt he would be knocked over. It wasn’t until he opened one of his eyes that he realized that he had closed both of them, in some sort of desperate wish. Feeling the familiar sensation of warmth on his palm, he knew it was working. Biting down on his lip, he began to hold his breath, knowing now that he just had to control it.

He looked at Alex, who had dropped Pete and was looking at him, his face no longer an expression of snarky malice. Instead, it looked confused and hurt. Like this afternoon. His arms had dropped, and he turned to Ryland, his whole body absorbed in the golden colored hue that was now exploding from Ryland’s palm. He opened his mouth, it forming an ‘O’ shape. As he felt the energy soar into his palm and through his veins, giving him a rush similar to one of that like caffeine, he winced, knowing that it was only because that it was leaving Alex’s body. Alex tried to take a step towards him, but instead he crumpled to his knees, clutching his torso.

Pete, who was still sitting in the street, called out, pleading for him to stop; that he had done enough. The winds were blowing so hard now that Ryland could barely hear him. It didn’t occur to him at this point that the winds were coming more from him than from Alex. Alex no longer was using his powers; instead, it was Ryland who was being overwhelmed by his own. And no matter how hard he tried to stop, he couldn’t. It was like a repeat of every time before, when he’d tried it on that stupid cat. He’d get to the point where he’d want to stop, but couldn’t. And when it was all over, he’d sat there, looking at the body and just wanting to cut off his own hands because it was like they were some sort of weapon. Only now, it was Alex at the other end, and Ryland couldn’t stop at all. Pete yelled again, but it was useless.

Ryland really was going to kill him.

Ryland was being pulled forward, the distance between him and Alex being shortened. He tried anything he could think of; tried turning the power on himself, onto one of the others, onto some inanimate object. But as he watched Alex weakly lay onto the ground, desperately trying to reach out for Ryland, he was out of ideas, and he knew Alex was running out of time.

Out of nowhere, something hit him from the side and the warmth in his hand was gone. As he looked around him, he noticed Frank climb out from the store window, his arm outstretched and the force field around him slowly disintegrating. Once it had, he clambered to his feet to pull Alex into his arms, trying to pretend the lump that had formed in his throat wasn’t there. He supported most of Alex’s weight, pulling his upper body into his lap and telling him that it was all okay now, everything was going to be fine, it was over.

“Alex?” he called out faintly, wondering if he would get a response. Alex’s powers were always really scary when Ryland had thought about them, and the fact that there was a possibility that he could be lost within his own mind forever made Ryland want to cry even more. He brushed Alex’s hair off of his forehead, which was startlingly cool.

He watched as Alex blinked a few times, like some kind of lost toddler, before the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. Without a word, Alex grabbed onto Ryland’s shoulder and pulled himself up, softly placing a kiss in the corner of Ryland's mouth. When they parted, he was still smiling.  For a second, Ryland felt like could barely breathe. He was so happy because it’s Alex and _fuck he’s okay_ and honestly he can't remember why he was so scared before. Alex wordlessly blinked a few more times, before his eyes rolled back into his head, his body going limp in Ryland's arms.

Oh. Maybe that was why.

  
:: ::

  
The first thing Alex was aware of was that he had a blinding headache, and that beeping, wherever it was coming from, was not helping it. He groaned, just wanting it all to stop.

"...hey, I think he's coming..." he heard someone muttering, and wondered to himself who was coming over, because he really was not in the mood for company.

Finally opening his eyes, he found himself in one of the two infirmary beds that the house had. The beeping was coming from a machine that looked like it was a heart monitor... Alex wasn't really sure. He tried to sit up, but just trying to pick his head up left him feeling woozy. He sank back into the pillows, his head spinning.

"Hey, take it easy."

Moving his head as little as possible, Alex found Mark sitting in a fold out chair next to him, a slight smile on his face. He swallowed, a bit worried. Mark pretty much never left the control center unless it was for ‘business’ stuff. Or if stuff was really fucked up and he had to take control because Pete had no idea what he was doing. The fact that he was here was… well, scary.

"How are you feeling?"

Alex tried again to sit up, but a wave of dizziness washed over him, his head flopping backward against his own will. He groaned inwardly, shutting his eyes to try to quell the feeling. "Like shit. What happened?"

Mark didn't say anything, so when Alex finally looked at him, he noticed Mark frowning. "You don't remember?"

"After leaving the house, it's all kind of a blur."

With a sigh, Mark leaned forward in his chair. "Maja was responsible for the loss of control when it came to your powers. Over the past few weeks, she has been using a deadly combination of psychological powers to defeat all of your mental resistances. That night you left the house, she finished the job..."

Alex felt like he couldn't catch his breath. He stared at his own hands, like they were going to betray him again. "Wait, what? I don’t get-"

Mark sighed, clasping his hands together. “Your powers are some of the most intricate we’ve ever come across, Alex. For all we know, you could start sprouting new powers any day now. You are extremely powerful, but you keep that power under great control, which is something I admire greatly about you. Maja decided that she was going to get rid of this control and see what happened.” He cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair and looking away the bed. Alex watched him intently, sensing the sudden change in emotion.

“I’m not sure if you know this, but, uh, when I still had my powers, which were nothing like yours, I had to keep them under control. Every time I opened my mouth, I had the ability to send supersonic waves. Even if I didn’t want to.” Alex looked down at his hands. He didn’t know that much about what had happened to Mark, but from what he’d heard from the others, Mark had had the equivalent of a supersonic scream. Alex could only imagine trying to have to control that.

“Thank you,” he said simply, realizing that Mark was trying to make him feel better. And it had worked a little bit. Mark’s lips quirked up into a smile.

Alex quickly frowned though, something still leaving him feeling unsettled. "Does this mean there's a part of me that's evil?"

Mark chuckled. "I don't know. Your mind is a fucking complicated place, Suarez. We all have skeletons in our closet, so to speak. There could be, and there might not be. Whatever it is, you have it under control. It only came out because Maja forced it." Alex let out the breath he noticed he’d been holding. So maybe he wasn’t evil. Maybe he wasn’t going to be responsible for thousands and thousands of death. Maybe… maybe there was hope for him.

There was a knock at the door, causing both of them to look up. Mark smiled, before telling Alex he’d be back to check in a little later. Standing awkwardly, leaning on the door frame was Ryland, looking a bit terrified. It really didn’t suit him well.

With that, Mark got up and left the chair to Ryland, who walked in and sat down simply, which left Alex feeling a little odd. Normally, Ryland would’ve smiled at him and attack hugged him, or yelled at him for doing something so stupid like that. Him being so sullen wasn’t normal. Granted, Alex didn’t know what had happened in the the past… however long he’d been unconscious, so hey, maybe brooding Ryland was the new thing.

"Hi."

"Alex."

"That's me," Alex replied, grinning.

The semblance of calmness that Ryland had come in wearing was already breaking down. He was cracking at the seams, and falling apart. He dropped his head into his palms, tugging at his hair. "Alex. You've been in a coma for a week. You almost _died_ ," he muttered through the hands, not looking up.

Alex frowned, looking warily at Ryland. He sounded angry. With a shrug, Alex tried sitting up again, this time a little slower. It worked, only a bit of pain causing him to wince. "Okay. I'm sorry? I’ll try to do better next time?"

"'I'm sorry?' ' _I'm sorry?_ '! I almost kill you and you're the one apologizing!" Ryland exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

"Yes, I'm apolo- wait, what?" Alex said, struggling with the pillow before stopping altogether. "You did what?"

Ryland peeked out from behind his hands, creating space between his fingers to see through. "It was horrible, Alex. You were…evil. It wasn't you, and I knew you wouldn’t want to do those types of things. Pete told me I had to do it, or they might end up killing you. I had a better chance of not killing you. I knew I was going to fail, because look! Here you are! I almost killed you, and I would've if Frank didn't stop me..." Ryland was babbling at this point, which meant that he was getting emotional and his brain to mouth filter wasn’t working, but Alex stopped listening. He felt himself smile; felt it practically stretch across his face from ear to ear.

"Come here," he said, beckoning Ryland to come over to the bed. As he did, Ryland stopped talking, the tears that had been threatening to leak out of his eyes stopping as well.

"What?"

"Come here, you idiot."

Getting out of the chair slowly and walking over to the bed, Ryland stood there awkwardly, looking like he was scared of Alex. Alex wrapped his hand gently around Ryland's forearm, smiling up at him and pulling it like he wanted Ryland to get into the bed.

Before he knew it, Ryland was grinning and shaking his head. "You're crazy." To prove that he wasn't, Alex moved over - still clutching onto Ryland's arm.

Ryland rolled his eyes, but was smiling. He dropped the metal bar before getting into the bed like old times. Alex covered them with the knit throw blanket at the bottom of the bed before Ryland pulled him in closer, draping his long arm over the smaller boy. Alex curled up, tangling his fingers in Ryland’s t-shirt, wanting to get lost in this feeling.

"You _saved_ my life, moron. I don't care what you had do... the fact still remains. You saved my life," Alex whispered, using his thumb to wipe away the tear tracks that still lingered on Ryland's cheeks.

"You can't be saying that you-"

Instead of continuing to fight with him, Alex cut him off by covering his lips with his own. He felt Ryland go tense against him, and for a moment, he thought he might have made a mistake. But when Ryland relaxed into it, his hand coming up to caress Alex's jawline, he was pretty sure that this was no mistake.

When they finally broke apart, Ryland smiled. Before pulling Alex in for another kiss, he muttered, "Don’t even get me started on the fact that you’re not allowed to die. Not unless I say so, because _fucking hell_ , if you so much as try that again, I’ll bring you back and kill you myself.”  
 ****  
.frank &gerard.  
Working at Kinko’s was probably one of the worst jobs in the world, ranked right around sewage worker, porn star extra, or something like a podiatrist. The fact that he spent almost every hour of every day behind a stupid counter helping middle aged mothers copy invitations to parties, or scanning pictures for impatient college students who had waited until the last moment to do some project. It took every sheer bit of his will power not to stare at the clock for the entire time and count the hours until his shift was over every day. And right now, he was seven minutes and forty three seconds into his eight hour shift. He was already ready to bash his face into the counter. With a groan, he laid his head down the counter, though not hard enough to knock himself out. He laid there for a second before he heard the bell ring.

Waiting for the nasally voice of his superior to yell at him, he rolled his eyes when the bell rang again. He sighed, straightening his clothes. “Welcome to Kinko’s, how may I help you?”

“Cute nametag. I like it. Very corporate.” Frank stopped, and found himself breaking out in a grin. Gerard wasn't wearing his marching band jacket, but instead a pair of tight jeans, a black t-shirt and leather jacket, and a red scarf with matching fingerless gloves.

"What are you doing here?"

Gerard shrugged, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head. Leaning onto the counter, propping his chin in his hand, he asked "Will you believe me if I tell you that I need to make copies and this is the only place that I trust to do it?"

Laughing, Frank looked over his shoulder at the copy machines, which were currently unoccupied. "And what would you need to get copied?"

"If I told you my ass, would you let me do it?" It was only a few seconds before Gerard burst into giggles - yes, fucking _giggles_ \- but for a moment Frank thought he was serious. Both of them were laughing so loud that his co-workers were glaring at him. Frank flipped them off under the counter, not taking his eyes off of Gerard. Gerard stood up from the counter, now just leaning on it slightly. He looked over Frank's shoulder. "Any chance of you getting out of here?" Frank noticed that he wasn't smiling anymore, so much as biting his lip now.

"Why? What's up?"

"It's nothing. It's - it's just that I could use some company. And if you laugh at me because I say this, swear to fucking God I'll kill you, but I would love your company," Gerard replied in a small voice, not even looking at Frank anymore. It wasn't until Frank was jumping over the countertop and grabbing onto Gerard's hand that he truly realized what the fuck he was doing. He had just walked out of his job with not so much as a heads up, pulling one of his so-called enemies along with him. The so-called enemy who had sought him out and asked him to come with him. Any of the others would've been smarter. With all the other shit that had been happening lately, they'd all been on edge, practically looking for signals that Maja was coming for him. But ever since Ryan took out Tommy and joined the team, everything had been pretty quiet – except for Alex’s mental meltdown. Mikey had picked up heavy radio signals at their base, but that was it. So maybe this was just another signal that he didn't belong with them.

Because if they knew... He pushed that thought out of his mind. As he pulled Gerard along, listening to him talk and laugh, laughing himself as they went, he'd never felt more at home. Fuck the others. If they didn't care about what he wanted, then they could go to Hell. Sitting across the street, however, glancing out from over the top of his book, William Beckett almost dropped his coffee as he saw Frank and one Maja's bitches walking along the sidewalk, hands intertwined.

:: ::

  
"Yellow, Halloween, Spiderman, 12, and... I'm a vegetarian?" Frank said, furrowing his eyebrows together as he answered the last part. Gerard stared at him for a second before almost spitting out the mouthful of Coke he had just swallowed.

"Why do you hate the color yellow? Or Spiderman for that reason?"

"Yellow is too bright. And Spiderman just sucks. Anyone can see that. He's PMSing through the whole comic. Add the fact that Tobey Maguire is a shitty actor, and I'll never look at that comic the same way again," Frank snapped back before stealing some of Gerard's chips.

"What about you?" Dropping his cup, Gerard leaned back, resting most of his weight on his hands. He pushed his sunglasses back down over his face and looked up at the sky.

"Purple. I hate the color purple," he said simply. "My favorite holiday is this day called Inspire Your Heart with Art. Worst superhero would have to be Speedball. And a secret? Shit, I don't know. I was in rehab for a while a few years ago." Frank almost choked on the chip that was in his mouth. He wasn't expecting that. Out of any possible 'secret'. Anything in the world that had happened to Gerard (or that he could've even fucking made up!), he tells him probably one of his most innermost secrets. Taking a deep breath and still trying not to choke, Frank told himself not to freak out, even though that was really all he wanted to do at this point. But he knew if he did, he could scare Gerard away.

"What happened?" With a shrug that Gerard tried to pass it off like he didn't care, but Frank could see the tension wrought in the muscles in his neck and leading down under the collar of his shirt.

"I was on the streets, all by myself for years. I tried getting jobs, shit like that, but it never filled the hole inside of me. I knew that it came from leaving-" he stopped, clearing his throat, and taking a shuddery breath. "Leaving him. But I couldn't go back. I didn't even know where he was, because by this point, he was out of the system. So I did whatever I could to numb the pain." Frank stopped pulling his knees close to him and resting his chin on a bare spot where there was a hole. It was strange. Well, technically everything about this semi-platonic friendship that he and Gerard had was beyond bizarre, but every time Gerard talked about things that were... normal. It went against everything that he and the other heroes had come to know. Villains were evil, plain and simple. They weren't human, they didn't lead normal lives, there were no redeeming qualities about them. But every time that Frank heard Gerard tell something about his life, he ended up with so many questions. And every time, he questioned everything that the heroes had told him. Because honestly, if Gerard was considered to be evil, he didn't want to consider where that left him.

"What caused you to go into rehab?" he finally asked, breaking the silence. Gerard made a brief movement, a mix between a shrug and a roll of his shoulders.

"One of my neighbors three floors down pulled a restraining order on me. Which I was arrested for breaking. 17 times. I had to go to court and everything."

"What? What did you do?"

"I was drunk, I couldn't help it. My apartment was number 631. This guy lived in 331, and since it was the same cheap-ass building, the same key worked for the standard locks. The landlord was a fucking idiot. It was up to the tenants to install other locks, which I had, but this douchebag hadn't. I would come home drunk, stumble up 3 flights of stairs, which I miscounted as being 6. I didn't even both to look at the number on the apartment. So those 17-plus times, I technically broke into his apartment and," Gerard looked away, mumbling the last part, "climbed into bed with him." Frank looked at him, debating on whether he should try console him or burst into laughter. He ended up with the latter, as he stifled the bursts of chuckles that erupted from him. Gerard rolled his eyes, full out laying on the grass now. "It's not that funny." But before he could even finish the sentence, he was laughing as well. Soon, they were both in hysterics, clutching at their sides and rolling into one in other. Pulling his sunglasses off to wipe the tears from his eyes, he said "It's not as bad as it sounded. He only slept naked some of the time."

Frank curled in on himself as he burst out laughing again. When he finally stopped, he propped himself up on one of his elbows, cradling his chin in his hand. "You didn't answer the third one."

Picking at some grass, Gerard started to hum. "I don't know what you're insinuating," he said. Grinning, Frank moved closer, so that their elbows were touching, their hips and thighs barely brushing one another.

"You're a liar, and a horrible one and that. First kiss, fess up." Gerard let out a laugh, hollow sounding and high-pitched.

  
"I told you, I was twelve." Frank found himself grinning, moving even closer so that he was practically on top of Gerard. "You are a liar! That was me!" A pinkish hue crept up Gerard's neck and flooded over his cheeks. He groaned, throwing his head back in exasperation.

"Really? Are you sure?" With a shout, Frank rolled over, pinned Gerard down. Underneath him, the smaller man tried to kick him off, but Frank simply smiled and grabbed onto Gerard's wrists with one hand. He moved the other to Gerard's stomach. He felt himself smirk. "Last chance?"

"You wouldn't dare." Gerard lowered his eyes over his glasses, in what seemed like an attempt to be intimidating, but the huge smile on his face wasn't helping. Before he could say anything else, he was laughing again and Frank was tickling him. "S-sixteen!" he finally gasped out through the laughs, causing Frank to let go of him, settling most of his weight back on Gerard's legs with a satisfied smile on his face.

"That wasn't so hard," he snorted, but still not rolling off. As Gerard laid there, catching his breath, Frank felt the smile fall off of his face. Silently, he climbed off and back onto the grass, facing Gerard. He watched him as regained his composure, his cheeks slightly tinted red, his glasses askew and hair a mess. He couldn't tell if it was the way he looked when he was laughing, the way he had been wiggling around under Frank while he laughed, or any other number of things that had happened through this hectic day, but something about Gerard had caused something to unfurl in his stomach. Something warm and heavy, spreading out to all of his limbs. Gerard must've noticed this, because he stopped smiling as well, his lips now set in a thin line.

His hand felt strangely heavy, but he lifted it slowly, moving just enough that he could wrap it lightly around Gerard's neck, cupping his cheek. He didn't know what he was doing, this went against everything that should happen. Just because Gerard told him a few sob stories and took him out to eat lunch in the city park did not mean that he wasn't a villain. But Frank was _so_ lonely. And Gerard...Gerard was perfect, with all of his flaws. He couldn't just forget about this; pretend like it didn't happen. Because it was wonderful and breathtaking and mind-boggling and just... amazing. He very well knew that there were two choices right here and now. And with either one he chose, he'd being going against everything he'd been taught. He either had to betray his team or betray his own heart. Swallowing at the big lump that had formed in his throat, he continued to run his thumb over Gerard's jaw line.

While he pulled Gerard's face closer to his, now cupping it in both of his hands, he was pretty sure he felt his heart breaking. And as he kissed Gerard, falling into a tumble of emotions that were new to him yet felt so familiar, he knew things at the house were never going to be the same again.

Once he and Gerard finally stopped making out on the grass (much thanks to the grinning older woman who threw a loaf of bread at them before shouting 'Keep it in your pants or put it in mine!', which caused them to jump at least a foot apart. The fact that it was pretty dark out also left Frank with a bad feeling. His shift was supposed to end at 3, and the sun was sinking below the horizon, meaning it was past eight.

"I want to see you again," Gerard mumbled, a few blocks from where the house was. They decided that unless it was dark out and Gerard was traveling by shadows, he should keep a safe distance away from the house.

"I know." Frank had a horrible taste in his mouth, feeling slightly nauseous. He took a deep breath, which ended up sounding like he was hyperventilating. "I just - I need to make some headway with the others. See how they're going to take this. Okay?" he asked. No matter how much he tried not to, all he could do was picture the looks on the other guys faces when they found out what he did today. He couldn’t get around that; he had betrayed his team. The team who was constantly putting their life on the line for him – he went and betrayed them by making out with a guy he barely knew who also happened to be playing for the other team. And he hadn't even thought twice about it.

Gerard nodded. "I understand. I'm sorry, I haven't been exactly compassionate to how difficult this might be on you. With me, no one cares who I'm with, as long as I do what they ask. They'd even see this as a positive." Frank frowned, turning towards Gerard as a feeling of coldness passed over him. Like someone shot ice water through his veins. Immediately, Gerard winced, waving his hands. "No! I didn't mean it like that!" He slapped himself in the face. "I'm just saying that you're a lot closer to your team than I am, and I am obviously not very good at this," he stated, making a motion to the two of them, which got a chuckle out of Frank. "Forgive me?" He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Gee, don’t worry about it. It’s fine,” Frank replied, wrapping his arms around him. They stayed like that for a while, because in the back of Frank’s mind, something was saying to enjoy this while it lasted. Feelings like this didn’t stay forever, especially when you were with your supposed mortal enemy.

“Can I come see you tonight? When your team is asleep?” Gerard whispered into Frank’s shoulder. Frank wanted to say no, to tell him that this had been fun, but his place was with the heroes, and Gerard’s was with the villains. To tell him that he would look out for Mikey, and even though Gerard was very sweet, they couldn’t see each other any more.

“Please,” Frank implored desperately, settling his forehead in the crook of Gerard’s neck. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. But every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was their faces – hurt, angry, disappointed. He shivered at the thought. Gerard moved his hand from Frank’s back to his neck, kneading softly.

“Frankie?” he asked quietly. He could hear the worry shaking in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

Frank stepped back, wanting to run away from Gerard and never leave his arms all at once. With a smirk and a blush, he rubbed his arms bashfully. “I just – fuck – you’re addicting.” Now that both of them were blushing, Gerard gave him a peck on the cheek before silently stepping back into the shadows of a building. Frank turned away, knowing that if he was watching, he would’ve jumped in there with him. **.frank.  
**

Standing at the entrance to their headquarters and waiting for the scanner to warm up, Frank tried to figure out who was going to be home tonight. It was Friday at around 9:30… so that meant Gabe and William probably would be gone. Pete was stalking Patrick begging for forgiveness, and Brendon was probably with Spencer. Jon was probably going to be home, but only because Ryan had moved in. Ever since then, the two always locked themselves in their bedroom, getting stoned and playing guitar and having sex. It was almost as bad as Gabe and William.

Ryland and Alex might be home, watching a movie and holding hands under a blanket, trying to still pretend that they’re not hopelessly in love with each other. Frank rolled his eyes at that. By the end of the movie they’ll be cuddling and by the end of the night they’ll be all over each other.

That left Mark and Mikey. Frank put his hand on the scanner, which recognized him, welcomed him home personally, and opened the door for him. Mark would probably ignore him, like usual, moping around in his vow of silence, never to be broken until he died or he found Tom again. And Mikey was probably reading. He swallowed the bitter taste that had risen in his mouth. He'd been avoiding Mikey since his first meeting with Gerard, afraid he'd spill the secret. He knew that this didn't go unnoticed by the younger Way brother, as for the past few days, he’d been getting the silent treatment from him, along with looks of pleading from everyone else

Trying to ignore the feelings, he knew he was all set. He could make it straight to his room while avoiding any type of questions, glances, or questioning glances.

Hiding in the main entrance way for a second, he made sure the coast was clear before he tried to make a dash for his room. He only made it a few feet before he stopped on his own accord.

The main room, where they held debriefings, meetings, team plannings, and sometimes played beer pong on the ridiculously long table, was filled.

Everyone was home. Gabe, William, Pete…everyone. It was almost ten o’clock on a Friday night, and everyone was in there. Which meant that something horrible was happening. Only when there were disasters were they forced to meet, which everyone was now.

Except Mikey. Frank noticed he wasn’t in the room. That suddenly made his stomach sink.

As he walked into the doorway, they watched him and the awkward tension hit him like a bus. He stopped, feeling every single pair of eyes on him.

“Hey guys,” he said, trying to pass of a sense of nonchalance onto them. His voice came out in high-pitched, on the verge of tears mess.

“Frank,” Mark said sternly, motioning to the empty chair at the end of the table.

“What’s going on? Is something wrong?” he continued, still standing and really wishing he didn’t sound like he was about to cry. Or like he was on helium.

“Frank.”

“Where’s Mikey? Is – is something wrong?” he persisted shakily, hoping this wasn’t what he thought it was. He shut his eyes and breathed in deeply. Thinking back to those few minutes where he and Gerard were laying in the grass, and Frank had to choose between him and the team, this was the part he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle. He couldn’t face them, especially all at once.

“Frank!” The voice was unexpected; it wasn’t Mark, who looked just as surprised as Frank felt. He stepped back, staring at Gabe, who had practically jumped out of his chair, slamming his fist on the table. “Sit the fuck down.” He glared out from under his purple hood, the fist on the table shaking.

Swallowing and praying that he’d make it out of this alive, Frank sat down. He opened his mouth to try to say something, maybe try to lessen their blows…

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” Pete said darkly, leaning forward in his chair. His expression was mean, and not in the mean-but-I’m-actually-kinda-joking-cause-I’m-actually-quite-lovable way. It was flat out mean – even kind of scary - and it left Frank feeling uneasier than before.

Backing into his chair, he stammered “I don’t-”

Mark looked up from his chair at the other end of the table, his eyes leveling into stare. “You know exactly what we’re talking about Frank. What we’re talking about is the fact that you’re maintaining a relationship with one of Maja Ivarsson’s assistants and putting everything about our organization in jeopardy.”

If Frank’s heart had broken before, now it had crumpled into a thousand pieces and was obliterated by laser guns and stampeding giraffes. They all knew, knew he had betrayed them. He couldn’t look up from the table. He didn’t want to see the letdown on their faces.

“You don’t know-”

“I saw you,” William said quietly, not even looking up from the table.

This was a reminder of all those times when Frank had been younger and gotten caught by his mother lying about cleaning his room, when in fact he’d just thrown everything out of his window.

It was so quiet in the room he could hear his own heart beating. There was another lie on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to cover it all up perfectly ('Oh, Mom, the house tipped over when you weren't home. All my stuff fell out when I was trying to clean!), but he realized he couldn't do it.

“I – I don’t know what to say,” he mumbled, dropping his head into his hands.

“You’re supposed to be able to deny it, you fucking disloyal traitor!” Gabe yelled, jumping out of his chair again. “You’re supposed to tell us it never happened, you weren’t doing anything, and we’re all idiots!”

Frank watched as Gabe’s hand pointed at him, still shaking uncontrollably. William reached up, wrapping his own around it and pulling him back into the chair and whispering something into his ear. Gabe was still glaring at him, but he had settled into the chair.

“Why would you do this to us Frank? Don’t you know what this could do to us?” Brendon mumbled, his eyes big and round. Sometimes, Frank really couldn't figure him out. He'd go from being so intelligent and serious at meetings to clapping and jumping up and down while watching Disney movies. Now, he looked like Frank had just run over his dog.

Seeing as he was the one sitting closest to Frank, he started to reach out for Frank, but immediately Frank pulled away, flinching. He didn’t deserve it. He looked at every one of them, trying to find some sympathy. Gabe was pissed, as were Pete and Mark. William was angry – just in a quietly detached way.

Brendon was being strangely compassionate, which Frank didn’t like either. He wanted sympathy, not pity. And Alex and Ryland were being unusually quiet, looking at the ground while whispering back and forth to one another.

That left Jon and Ryan.

With a loud and exaggerated sigh, Mark stood up. “Frank, what were you thinking?”

And just like that, something exploded in Frank’s chest. Who were they to question him? He was capable to make his own judgments of character. If he thought Gerard was dangerous, he very well would’ve stayed away from. He wasn't some fucking moron who was fresh off the streets, unaware of what could possibly happen! They should fucking trust him by now.

He shot to his feet, now enraged. “I was thinking that I’d sell you all out to Maja, because I’m secretly an evil ninja. Is that what you want me to say? You want me to say that I did it on purpose? Or that I’m sorry? Because honestly, I’m not really feeling this whole interrogation intervention ordeal!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have spent the day with one of Maja’s helpers,” Pete mumbled, crossing his arms.

Frank shot him a look. “Excuse me? None of us questioned you when you started dating Patrick.” Pete sat forward in his chair, an unreadable expression on his face. Ryan and Brendon perked up too. Before Frank could realize what he was doing, the words were spilling out of his mouth.

“Maybe we should. I mean, that whole being trapped in the fire thing could be a trap. He could be working for Maja too. Using this whole sensitive thing to get close to you before he tries to kill you." Everyone was gawking at him by now. Ryan's mouth was hanging open. Brendon was pulling at his hair. And Frank noticed that Pete had visibly paled under his tan.

He still continued on. "Oh wait, he doesn’t want to be with you anymore, never mind that.” As soon as it had left Frank’s mouth, he realized the magnitude of what he had just said.

Pete stared at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. The others looked at him in shock, watching as Pete stood up silently and backhanded Frank before storming out of the room.

Blinking the stars out of his vision, still slightly reeling, he turned back towards Mark, who was glaring at him right now. “Frank, what the fuck is your problem? You know what happened in the fire, why would you say something like that? I don’t understand what’s gotten into you lately.”

With a sigh, he felt his shoulders crumple. And this was it; he could tell them everything – about Gerard being Mikey’s brother, about how Gerard is actually normal, about how he doesn’t think he can go another day without seeing Gerard.

“I don’t know, what’s your problem? Jealous that I found someone while you’re still licking your wounds from losing Tom? Or maybe because he doesn’t even remember who you are?!” He clapped his hands over his mouth, as if that was a way to make his brain to mouth filter work again.

“Where the fuck do you get off Frank?”

“Frank, what are you doing?

“Fuck, Frank, what’s going on with you?”

All the color drained from Mark’s face. He set his jaw, taking a deep breath. He wasn’t looking at Frank anymore, which Frank wanted him to so he could send him some sort of apologetic glance.

Frank was expecting him to yell at him, punish him, sentence him to hours and days of physical training. Instead, Mark just sat there calmly. He folded his hands, and announced “Clearly, there’s two options here. The next time that we come across him, we terminate him, because he clearly knows too much about us. Or,” he paused, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked up at Frank, his eyes unreadable. “Or Frank leaves the team.”

“Wait, Mark, you can’t be serious.” Frank let out a bitter laugh, because Gabe was now defending him. Gabe’s entire demeanor had changed, along with the rest of team’s. Mark was leaning in his chair, looking quite composed while the others looked back and forth from each other and back at Frank frantically

“Perfectly. This man knows too much and has gotten too close to Frank and the team. One of them must go,” Mark replied simply with a shrug of his shoulder, setting his eyes on Frank.

Frank was silent. He felt everyone’s eyes on him again, like they were searching him for something that he couldn’t give them.

Brendon grabbed onto his wrist. “Frank, tell him that you’re going to stay with us. Frank. Please. Tell Mark.” Brendon’s hands were trembling, and it took everything in Frank to not listen to him; to not crumble under the touch. He shut his eyes, trying to push everything that was happening here and now out of his mind, and focusing instead on the one thing that mattered.

“That man, as you call him, Mark, is Gerard. Gerard Way, as in the eldest brother of the Way family, as in the older brother of Mikey.”

All the air rushed out of the room in a collective gasp. When Frank opened his eyes, everyone was staring at him.

“What?” Mark asked, the tone of his voice changing from one of anger to one of fear. “He’s – it’s – Mikey’s brother?”

Frank nodded. “He came to me asking a favor to make sure that we looked out for Mikey, because he wasn’t sure he could do it all the time.” Okay, so that wasn’t the exact thing that happened, but it sounded a hell of a lot better and made Gerard sound even better. If Frank brought up the whole foster care and rehab story, Gerard would probably replace him on the team.

Mark let out a breath that he seemed to have been holding forever. He threw his head back against the chair. “Frank, why didn’t you just tell us that right away? Here we are, thinking that you’re seeing him out of pleasure, but if he sought you out, it’s fine.”

And just like that, Frank felt like a giant weight had been lifted off of him. Maybe he would make it out of this alive, keeping both of the relationships in tact. Brendon grabbed him on the shoulder, a huge smile lighting up his face. And with that, Frank was pretty sure that it was going to be okay. “I’m sorry? I didn’t know I could’ve.”

With a laugh, Mark smiled, letting even more of the anxiety out of Frank. “Of course, Frank. We’re not going to get mad at you for something you have no control over. Just tell us what happened.”

Looking across the table, Frank saw that everyone else was smiling and calming down too. Gone was the atmosphere of somberness and tension. Frank felt himself relax. “When he came to see me the other time,” he started.

The room was silent. Mark stopped smiling. “The _other_ time?”

And just like that, the weight was back, possibly even worse.

“You’ve seen him before today, Frank?” The voice made Frank back up into his seat, wanting to pull his legs under him and crawl into the fetal position. Jon _NEVER_ yelled. Jon Walker was always cool and composed. Nothing ever made him mad. Until Frank.

“Once, but only because he showed up in my room…”

“He was in the house?” Alex asked out of the blue, staring at him, his eyes wide and looking strangely upset. All Frank could do was nod before Alex looked away.

“When?” Mark asked simply, crossing his arms. He didn’t look angry anymore, which made Frank feel extremely uncomfortable. He shifted back and forth in his chair.

“The night that they kidnapped William.”

William made a small noise that made it sound like he was choking, before he ran a hand through his hair, even though Frank could see from the other end of the table he was biting down on his lip. What was even stranger to him was that Alex was the one who was pale and wide-eyed. Ryland and Gabe were on either side of Alex, and they grabbed onto his forearms with a squeeze, whispering things to him that Frank couldn’t hear, which confused Frank,

The tension in the room returned, like there was something hidden. Mark stood up again. “Although I see where you thought you were doing Mikey a favor, maybe you should’ve done some research before this. Gerard was not only a person who contributed to the attack on William and Gabe, but we’ve come to the conclusion that he was behind most of the incident that happened with Alex.”

His heart jumped into his throat. Frank wasn’t expecting that. Gerard had never even mentioned that, although they had only been together for maybe a total of fifteen hours. “That can’t be right,” he responded, a nervous laugh backing him up. “You – you said it was Butcher.” But the more he started to think of it, Gerard had mentioned how he made Mikey have nightmares. Which Alex had had terrible ones before Butcher pushed him over the edge.

“I said Butcher contributed, which he did, destroying most of Alex’s mental resistance. That doesn’t account for the nightmares and bringing out the darker part of his mind. What would accomplish that is dream interference and possession. Both of which Gerard has.” Mark tossed a manila folder across the table.

With a wary hand, Frank lifted the top. It was a work up on Gerard’s powers. “Where did you get this?” he asked softly, looking over everything as a heavy feeling settled into his stomach.

“Once the work on Alex came back, I hacked into Maja’s database,” Mark said.

“Does Mikey know?” Frank said, shutting the top of the folder. Mark shook his head.

He had been the only one who was privy to this information. This had been at the time when Alex was still having the nightmares. Frank had had the capability at the time to put two and two together and figure out what was happening with Alex. After Gerard told him, if he wasn’t so taken with Gerard and actually looking for suspicious signs, he could’ve helped Alex. His own teammate, not one of Maja’s minions.

Pushing the folder away from him, Frank closed his eyes. He knew they were waiting for him to make a choice. For him to say ‘I was wrong, you’re the ones for me! BFFL!’ But he couldn’t. Not after what had happened. The fact that he had picked a villain over his own teammate showed him something about himself. Looking at himself in a new perspective, it was ugly. He needed to get his head straight before he hurt someone else.

He couldn’t pick Gerard anymore either. Not after what he found out.

He pushed himself away from the table. It was too much. He’d come in here, knowing what he’d wanted out of everything, but know he was leaving with no idea what he wanted or who he was. After today, he thought he’d found everything he’d possibly need, but it was all a lie.

Sighing, he looked at Alex, who looked extremely young right now. “I’m sorry if it seems like I betrayed you. I didn’t –” he stopped, realizing that he was beginning to lie to him. Running a hand over his face, he sighed. “I did know he had those capabilities, but if I had thought for one moment that he had been behind it, it never would’ve happened. I didn’t know he was behind it, I swear. My loyalty had always laid with you.” He inhaled deeply, watching as Alex looked up at him, giving a small nod.

Ryan cocked his head to the left. “So does this mean you’re staying with us?”

“I never said that,” he muttered, just wanting to curl in on himself.

“What? Frank, you can’t be serious? After everything… We understand. Just…” Mark exclaimed. His voice sounded different. It wasn’t as angry. It was more compassionate, pleading.

“I didn’t say I was going to him. I just said I wasn’t staying with you,” he said, turning his back to them. Which was what he’d been doing all along. He bit down on his lip, willing the lump in the back of his throat to disintegrate.

“Frank…”

“I – I can’t do this anymore. I quit.”

  
 **.BAMFepicness.**  
Maja looked onto the machine, wondering if this was how a parent felt when they looked at their child. A child who was made of titanium steel and chemicals, had restraints in it, and was capable of murdering millions of people. She sighed, such a proud mama.

There was a certain swell of happiness inside of her as she thought of what was to come in the next few hours. And it was all going to be because of her and this machine. She smiled, beside herself.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said as she ran over one of the cool metallic blades surrounding the control center of it. “Because of this our dreams will come true, Thomas. Share in this moment with me.” She wanted to hug it.

Tom stood against the wall, leaning against the molding. He frowned, staring at Maja and the machine. “Maja, if you don’t mind me asking, of course, but what is the meaning behind this machine? You’ve never told me…”

Maja froze still, her hand clutching the blade. That was a question. Against her. Meaning that Tom had formed it on his own, in his own head, with his own cognizant thoughts.

Putting on a mask of concern, she turned around to face Tom. “Are you feeling alright? You don’t look well.” She placed the back of her hand against Tom’s forehead.

Making a face, Tom shrank back. “I feel fine. I’m – I’m just curious as to what this great machine you’ve been talking about for the past month will truly do. You've gone on nonstop about how magnificent it is, but I still don't know how I play into this, or why you’re bringing the heroes into this. It seems like they really haven’t done anything to you except their job.”

“And why would you ask a stupid question like that? They’re our mortal enemies, why shouldn’t they see the destruction?” Maja said, going back over to the machine and looking at the power pads that shot out of the center, supported by flawless metal poles and encircled with matching restraints. Corresponding ones were one the ground, perfect for hands and feet. It was just waiting for someone to step inside of it.

“Because maybe they’re not that evil. Maybe – maybe they’re not that bad.”

It felt like all the air in the room was being sucked out of it. Maja stopped short. The world that she currently knew had just collapsed in on her. She was losing her grip on Tom’s mind. After almost a whole year, she was going to lose Tom the night she truly needed him. This couldn’t happen, not now.

A horrible noise filled Maja’s ears, making her flinch, until she realized that she was grinding his teeth. _“What?”_

Tom shrugged. “They aren’t as bad as you say they are. Maybe you should just give up on the whole ‘defeat the heroes’ plan.”

“Where are you coming up with this?” Maja asked playfully.

“Does it matter?”

Maja slammed her fist down on the metal so hard that it began to shake. She wanted to yell and scream, but she noticed Tom was watching her carefully. She couldn’t upset him; not when they were this close.

“Tom, don’t worry. Everything’s going to work out the way I – we planned. Just relax,” she started before placing a hand on the back of Tom’s neck, digging her nails lightly into the skin. Slowly she felt the energy pulse through her hand and into Tom’s skin. Tom flinched under the touch before resuming a static pose. Maja smiled.

“And let me handle the rest.”

  
Pete really didn’t like Maja. At all. He really despised her and her little group of wannabe villains. And they weren’t even cool villains either. Like Poison Ivy or the Joker. No, they sucked, and they were mean.

First there was the whole thing when Mikey and Mark figured out that they set fire to the elementary school, when they were trying to kill Patrick and Ryan. And anyone who messed with Patrick or Ryan wasn't cool.

Then there was when Bob and Maja tried to destroy all of William’s emotions, when they tried to turn Alex evil and use him to kill everyone, and then when Conrad was going to erase all of Jon’s memories and turn him darkside.

In Pete’s head, that was just plain mean. Most comic book villains were out for world domination or lots of money. Which Maja and her group did part time. The other part, they were busy trying to eliminate the heroes.

Seriously, what side of the bed did these guys wake up on?

Now they had managed to trick Pete and the others to their headquarters on a call of Joe attacking a group of young women and their friends. When Pete and the others arrived, he found three young girls tied up with vines, and looking like they were unconscious from one of Joe’s nasty ass poisons. But they actually turned out to be Hayley, Vicky, and Nate shapeshifted.

From there, they were ambushed and trapped in a power deactivating force field created by Bob.

“Nice job, Pete. Did you even look into that call, like, at all you fucking moron?” Gabe muttered, kicking the force field again.

Pete tried to ignore him, but it was true. He had fallen for it. But he couldn’t help it! It was just the good heroic hero inside of him waiting to break free and do good deeds!

He was so desperate to prove that he was a hero and a good guy to Patrick – not just in it for the glamour and glory – that he heard the word ‘distress’ and sounded the alarm.

Even though it had happened weeks ago, everyone was still on edge and shaken up about what had happened with Frank that they automatically jumped into action as well, so it wasn’t completely his fault. Mark and Mikey had gone out to do some digging on the project they thought Maja was up to and wouldn’t be back until later, so they weren’t there to remind him to look at the footage or the actual information…

So here they were – ambushed and fucked over. And no matter how much Pete wanted to snap and stick his tongue out at Gabe or give them some motivational quote like a good leader should…he couldn’t.

Because as he looked at the surroundings, every bit of optimism drained from him. He realized how serious this was. As it had been in the past few horrible predicaments they'd found themselves in.

“So, what the fuck are we going to do?” Ryan said simply, scratching at his head. “Cause I managed not to have all my memories erased once, and I’d like to do that again.”

“We need Frank,” William stated quietly, sitting on the floor by Gabe’s feet and wringing his hands, quickly drawing everyone’s attention.

If only.

No one had seen or heard from Frank since he packed his bags and walked out of the house that night. The atmosphere in the house had changed after that. Mikey was still pretty angry with them over the whole thing, blaming them for driving Frank away. And honestly, they started to blame themselves too. It wasn’t like they were exactly accepting of Frank. They even tried to contact Gerard, but apparently Frank had gotten angry with him that night as well, and the two hadn’t spoken either.

If Frank showed up now, Pete would kiss him on the mouth and proclaim his undying love to him. He missed Frank. Everyone missed the little tattooed midget. The house just wasn’t the same. Team dynamics and all the shit.

Pete opened his mouth to say something, but then evil reared its ugly head. Evil…or more like Maja Ivarsson. They were one in the same in Pete’s head, really.

She walked up to them, a sultry smirk plastered across her face. “I’m so happy that you could join us tonight! You lucky boys are just in time for the premiere showing of my newest creation.” She motioned to the large machine behind him, which was surrounded by his other lackeys. All of them with the exception of Gerard.

“You eight have front row seats to what promises to be the biggest genocide that the twenty-first century will see… It’s going to be thrilling. I promise,” she hissed. The others surrounded her, identical grins on all of their faces.

As soon as Maja brought up the ‘g-word’, a chill ran down Pete’s spine. They were well-equipped to deal with the garden variety bank robbers, crooks, and maybe one or two super villains like Maja and her gang. Nobody said anything about having to stop mass killings.

“You’ll never get away with this!” Brendon exclaimed as he pressed a finger against the wall of the force field.

“Fuck, do they really think that line is threatening? It didn’t work for Scooby, and it won’t fucking work for you!” Joe shouted without looking up from the controls of the machine. Brendon humphed.

Maja simply smiled, shook her head amusedly, and laughed. “You never fail to entertain me. And yes, I do thoroughly believe I will get away with this. And you will watch the entire thing. You see, this machine destroys human beings.”

Pete heard a mixture of a laugh and a groan come from behind him. “Jeez, Maja, if you’re just looking for a way to off yourself, you should’ve told me. I got some spare rope lying around in my car. No need to go and include everyone in your death wish,” Gabe muttered.

“-human beings without superhuman DNA,” Maja growled, sneering at Gabe, who was smiling at William. “Therefore, any human that does not possess an ability of any kind will be eradicated from this planet. The only people who will be alive to repopulate will be ones with powers, creating a breed of superhumans.”

She looked longingly at the machine, before turning back at the heroes, her face turning into one of disgust. Taking long strides, she came up to within an inch of the forcefield wall, almost pressing herself up against it.

“That filth that roams the planet now will be disposed of neatly and quickly. Before tomorrow evening comes, in fact. And you all have a front row seat to it all. I brought you all here to show you what happens when you lower your standards and mingle with the humans,” she growled before turning around slowly, her eyes landing on Brendon and Pete. “Or even carry on relationships with them.”

With that, she walked away and joined the others, their voices hushed over. The air in the force field was now a somber one. Before it had simply been them; they were usually the only ones who got hurt, and they were okay with that. But now, Maja was threatening the entire human population. And not them. Everyone but them.

And there was nothing they could do about it.

Pete’s mind was racing. _what are we going to do? how do we get out of this? what powers that machine? is there anything we can do from inside here to stop it? is patrick okay? is he ever going to forgive me? i love him so much. i want him to know that. oh god, everything’s my fault. everyone’s going to hate me because i was responsible for the death of like three billion people…_

“Dude, could you like, I don’t know, mute your thoughts? Just a little bit? I can’t read your mind but this headache I have tells me that you are thinking. A LOT,” Alex winced, clutching at his temples.

“How do they power that machine?” Pete repeated, half for his own benefit, half to ask the others. “It almost looks like a person steps inside of it and puts their hands down like this…” He modeled the movement, but trailed off and stopped as he saw what was happening in front of them.

Silently, Maja and Butcher led a very docile Tom to the machine, where he stepped into it. They placed his hands onto the sensors, and shackled them down. Without a word or fight from Tom.

“It all makes sense now,” Brendon whispered horrified, his voice shaking as he grabbed out for Pete’s shoulder. “They needed someone to power the machine, but they didn’t want to sacrifice their own. So when they had the chance last year-”

“-they captured Tom,” a voice from outside the force field finished. They all turned around and found Mikey and Mark behind them, crouched down trying to stay out of sight.

“It’s about damn time,” Jon teased.

“Hey, we got here as fast as we could,” Mikey said, furrowing his brow together. He started to palm the forcefield. “Once we figured out what was actually going on over here, we had to get in here… which was surprisingly easy. What is this?” He poked the bubble, which didn’t move.

“It’s a power blocking forcefield. They’re talking about killing millions of people, Mark. What’s happening?”

Mark grimaced, his eyes never leaving Tom. “Mikey and I have been working the past few days to hack into these computers and look at the blueprints. What we came up with was that this is a machine that kills anyone with non-superhuman DNA. It searches the DNA for a certain abnormality that would contribute to a superhuman ability. If none is found, the DNA is obliterated, causing an agonizing and extremely painful death.”

“Whatever happened to these guys just robbing banks and all that shit? I mean, I’m not one to judge or anything, but I think this is overdoing it a little bit,” Gabe muttered, crossing his arms.

“The most vital component of the machine is the power source. From the magnitude of what the machine does, the power source has to be a strong one. Like human energy.”

“You don’t mean-”

“I mean that this machine is powered by human life!” Mark yelled, staring over at Tom who was standing in the machine, quietly as the others prepped the machine for warm up. Mikey slammed a hand over his mouth, effectively shushing him.

“We had thought that Toro and Andy had left the team because they were replaced by these guys. In fact, the replacements were brought in because Toro and Andy are both dead. They died during this process because it requires so much power,” Mikey explained softly, eventually letting go of Mark, but keeping his hand on Mark’s shoulder.

Mark sighed, his shoulders slumping. “The machine has to be powered by someone with superhuman DNA. It uses their DNA as a sample, like a comparison for what to look for. They picked Tom because of his accelerated healing abilities. If it’s too much for him, he’ll be able to heal himself quickly. If he can’t, it’s no loss to them.”

“Seriously, Mark. How did you figure all this shit out?” Pete finally asked, running a hand through his hair. This was heavy duty. He didn’t know what he would’ve done if Mark and Mikey hadn’t shown up with all this info.

With a roll of his eyes, Mark replied “Because when I talked to Tom a week ago, he told me that he was working with Maja on some ‘big project’ and that Maja had told him the project couldn’t be completed without him… after that, it just came together in my head.”

“Why couldn’t we just turn off the machine if it was started?” Ryland asked with a shrug of his shoulders.

“If we did, the DNA sequence would be lost to the computer, and would go into reverse effect, starting to kill everyone who has superhuman DNA. Plus, once a person is connected to the machine, there’s no way to stop the draining effect unless someone else steps in for them. It wouldn’t work.” Mark dropped his head. “I just – I can’t believe that I never thought of something like this in the beginning. I automatically thought he had run from me. I never thought that he didn’t have a choice…”

“Just another reason why he was better off without you.” They all silenced collectively.

Butcher came up behind Mark and Mikey, who looked at each other fearfully, before backing up into the forcefield and into each other for comfort. When Butcher came closer, Mikey instinctively tried to push Mark away, as if that would help. With a simple touch to the tops of their heads, the two fell to the floor unconscious, Mikey’s hand still limply tangled in Mark’s shirt.

He grabbed both of them off the ground and dragged them toward the front of the machine, despite the protests and yelling of everyone else.

“You can’t do this, Maja!” Gabe yelled, pounding a hand against the wall. “They never did anything to you… Leave this between us!”

Maja simply turned around. “Oh, but you see, they did. They existed. And you made it worse by consorting with them. So in a way, you volunteered them to be the test subjects. Speaking of which, where are the others?”

Butcher and Conrad ran towards what looked like a closet, and began digging around inside of it. Pete desperately tried to ignore the sinking feeling that was settling into his stomach. The fact that no one made a coming out of the closet joke showed just how serious this was.

Pete was praying that whatever they brought out of the closet wasn’t what he was expecting. Maybe it was gifts for them. Like a new puppy! Or Ashton Kutcher, telling them they were Punk’d. Or that guy with the really huge check to give them all money.

But Brendon’s repeated whisperings of “ _oh god please no oh god_ ” wasn’t helping to confirm Pete’s hopes. As the two walked out of the closet, dragging limp and blindfolded forms that resembled Patrick and Spencer, Pete’s had automatically formed a fist. Brendon had tensed next to him, pounding against the force field, clearly trying to find a weak spot that they had obviously missed before.

  
He didn’t care what happened to him…no one hurt his friends, especially Patrick. No one. He watched as the two bodies were dropped next to Mikey and Mark’s.

They started to look to one another, hoping maybe someone would pipe up with a brilliant idea. But while everyone kept their mouth shut, it started to sink in how serious this actually was. People – friends of theirs were probably going to die. And they didn’t have a plan. They didn’t even have any powers to work with. They weren’t heroes anymore. They were fucked.

A tap came from the back of the force field.

Or maybe not.

“What are you doing here?” William exclaimed happily, practically jumping in the air, before seven other pairs of hands clamped down on his, shushing him.

Frank grinned, waving a hand and the forcefield disappeared. “My Iero sense was tingling.”

They all gave him you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me looks.

The smile slipped off his face. “Even though I haven’t talked to him since the night I left, Gerard talked to me and warned me about what was going to happen tonight. Said I was your guys’ only hope, and that you’d need me. So I figured I couldn’t leave you hanging. You know how it is,” he muttered. He ducked his head, trying not to show how he was blushing horribly right now. “If you want, I can leave now.”

“Works for me!” Gabe whispered loudly, clapping Frank on the back, pulling him into a one armed hug.

Picking his head up, he scanned the room and saw the other four laying on the floor in front of the machine, where Tom was. Turning back to the others, his eyes were a mess of emotions. He said softly, “What’s going on?”

From his spot in the machine, Tom looked down at the bodies. He blinked a few times before looking up at Maja, a look of confusion on his face. “That one…the one in the green shirt…do I know him…? Maja, I think I know him…” Tom said, his face contorted in a scared look of uncertainty. Mark was currently dressed in a faded green t-shirt, with various bits of white writing on it.

Maja stopped, her hand frozen in mid air. She glanced at it, as if it was trying to tell her something. She then turned back to Tom. “What?”

Tom closed his eyes, and opened them again, almost wincing in the process. “I don’t know, I feel like I know him from something…it’s all just kinda like faded memories that are just appearing in my head.” He inhaled deeply and looked down at the restraints that were holding him in the machine. It took a few minutes before he looked up at Maja again, now tugging at them. "What's going on? Why am I handcuffed?"

“Bob, this isn’t your fault, is it? I’m losing my grip on him!”

Silence.

Maja turned, finding Bob at her feet and now nine superheroes facing her. She licked her lips, resisting the urge to start pulling at her hair. “I was wondering where you were, Iero.” Frank simply grunted and flipped her off. “No matter, we can still get on with this.”

Alex lifted his hand, his eyes subtly darkening. With a twitch of his fingers, a strangled gasp of pain escaped from Tom’s lips. The others looked at Alex, with a look of ‘did you really just do what I think you did?’ on their faces. Alex simply smiled and nodded. They watched as the color flooded back into Tom’s cheeks, as he got his bearings.

After a few minutes, Tom finally began to focus in on what was going on. “What the fuck happened? Am I high? Ugh, don’t tell me Iero convinced to smoke something he one of his friends sold him, because I’m pretty sure that was actually taken of the tree in the backyard…” he coughed, shaking his head, looking up at the others.

Pete grinned as he heard Frank burst out laughing next to him, remembering what had happened. “No. You’re coming off a year long overdose of mind control…”

Tom stopped smiling. “You’re shitting me, right? You mean, all those fucking horrible things, I actually did them? I thought I was dreaming. You sure I’m not high?”

“You remember everything?”

Tom nodded, embarrassment darkening his face. His messy bangs fell into his eyes, allowing him to hide behind them. Until he glanced onto the floor in front of him.

“Mark?” he whispered, his voice barely audible. When there was no response, no movement even, all the color from his embarrassment drained from his face. His skin now a deathly pale color, he turned to Maja. “What have you done?”

Maja groaned, clutching at her temple. “ENOUGH. I won’t have you ruining any more of my plan! Gerard, start the machine.” At the mention of his name, all of the heroes froze.

“Do anything else, and I’ll burn you to a crisp,” Jon warned, taking a step forward.

Quirking an eyebrow, Maja cocked her head. She pouted her lips a bit, placing a hand on her hip. “Come any closer, baby, think about laying a finger on me or and one of these four, and Butcher over there will kill all of your superfriends using just his mind. Try me.”

“Wait, where’s Gerard?” Frank demanded angrily, stepping forward. He threw a finger out at Maja. “What are you doing to him? He told me last time we talked he was going to leave. That he was done playing your games!” The others looked at him, before looking back at Maja.

With a shrug, but grinning the entire time, Maja stepped past Jon, giving him a shove for just cause. She swatted Frank’s hand away. “It’s obvious where his loyalties lie. Start the machine, Gerard.”

Gerard appeared from the shadows, dressed in the familiar jacket. All the buttons were askew and his eyes were ringed with dark purple circles. He made his way over to the levers, all of the heroes eyes still on him, waiting to see if he truly was the man Frank had made him out to be.

When he placed his hand on the lever, Pete snorted, casting a glare over at Frank and throwing his airs up in the air. “So this is the so called hero in disguise? He hasn’t even thought twice about killing everyone!”

Frank ignored Pete. “Gee, what are you doing?!” he exclaimed, trying to run forward. Joe shot a hand out, and a long vine appeared out of thin air, throwing Frank to the ground and knocking the air out of him. Gerard winced, trying not to look over at the others. He kept his hand wrapped around the lever, but didn’t pull it.

“Gerard,” Frank groaned, trying to sit up. “Why are you doing this? What – what about everything you said to me?” He rubbed at his chest, hissing when he hit tender. Brendon looked over at him, and was about to reach over to try and heal him, but Joe quickly grabbed Frank, looping an arm around his waist and yanking him backwards before Brendon could get to him. Thrashing uncontrollably, Frank yelled and slammed his fists against Joe, trying to get away from him.

“Frankie, I – I have to do it,” Gerard said, turning around, finally taking his hand off of the machine. “Maja – she, she said she would-”

“Stop this silliness, Gerard. Start the machine.”

“She said if I didn’t do it, she was going to hurt you. Frankie, I – I can’t let that – I can’t -”

“But what about Mikey?” Frank asked, his voice sounding slightly angry. “You’re okay with hurting him?”

Gerard frowned, looking honestly confused. He made a face, before turning back at Maja. In the process, he passed over the machine and the pile of the four who were laying on the ground.

“Mikey,” he gasped, taking a step backward, his hands covering his mouth. It was the first time he'd seen his brother in seven years. He’d wanted this to happen so many times. Tried to figure out ways to make it happen by accident, even though he knew it would be wrong and Mikey was better off without him.

And now Maja had almost tricked him into killing him.

Maja came up behind him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Gerard, what are you waiting for?”

Stepping away from Maja, all he could do was make a noise of disgust. “I’m not going to kill my little brother,” he whispered horrified. He looked back at the levers, before turning to Mikey. “No,” he replied, taking a step away from them. Pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes, he knew the heroes were watching him. He knew Frank was watching him. He couldn’t disappoint Frank. Never.

“You’re joking, right?” Maja asked incredulously.

“No, I’m not. You promised me from the beginning that if I stayed and worked for you, you’d keep my brother safe in the scheme of things. You told me that you wouldn’t hurt Mikey if I did what you wanted, which was the only reason why I stayed. You need to hold up your end of the deal,” Gerard answered, trying to ignore the shake in his voice. He turned at looked at Frank, who was still caught in Joe’s grasp, but was watching him intently, his face in what appeared to be shock.

“What? Why didn’t you – she was – you were blackmailed?” Frank whispered in a trembling voice before Joe continued to try to pull him farther away fro. Gerard.

“She found me, and told me her plan to take out your team. Said that with the use of the machine, and Mikey’s place helping you guys would end up leading to his death, so she said if I helped her, she wouldn’t kill him. I couldn’t tell you that, because I knew you’d try to help. I’m sorry.”

Maja stood motionless, before she smiled. “That was only if you were to pledge your…undying allegiance to me – and only me. Which you clearly didn’t,” he said, gesturing to Frank. Rubbing her hands together, she smiled. “But no matter, you’ve made your choice. You’ve chose not to pull the lever, so you know what that means.” He motioned over Gerard’s shoulder, which caused him to spin around.

Joe was grinning as he pressed his hand to Frank’s mouth, who immediately began to thrash and kick under the touch again. The heroes began to yell, but Butcher raised his arms, reminding them of the threat that was in place. If they were all dead, no one would be able to save the world, so that really didn’t help…

Gerard couldn’t speak as he watched a sickeningly green smoke come out of what looked like Joe’s palm, only to be inhaled by Frank. His movements quickly became less violent, slower, more sluggish. Until he was limp in Joe’s arms, who threw him across the floor towards the heroes.

Expecting them to come after him now, Gerard couldn’t breathe. He felt nauseous, and just wanted to crawl up in the corner, waiting till it was his turn for poison. This was why he didn’t get close to people. Because he always ended up hurting them. His parents, Mikey, his friends, and now Frank. Nothing ever worked out.

He heard Maja laughing, but she soon stopped, watching as the heroes formed a line, like they were actually in some comic book. Pete grinned before yelling “Alex, NOW!” With a flash of darkness in his eyes, he stepped forward, lunging at Butcher. Butcher’s face contorted in pain before he consequently clutched at his temples, falling to the ground in a heap.

“Before you go attacking one of my heroes, again, Maja? Make sure you do your research. Your attack on Alex made him stronger.” Pete cracked his knuckles as the others surrounded him.

Gerard slowly got to his feet, watching as Brendon was leaning over Frank. “Fucking fuck, Iero, I swear to God, if you die because of this,” he was muttering as he pounded on Frank’s chest roughly with his palms, until Frank started to cough out the green smoke, before laying back on the ground weakly, but still breathing. Brendon smiled at him, placing his hand gently on Frank’s chest.

With a yell, the heroes ran for Maja’s team. And with only Nate, Hayley, VickyT, Tommy, and Joe against the eight of them together, it didn’t take long for the heroes to gain the upper hand.

Gerard stepped forward from the corner, looking around. He saw the others, but he couldn’t find Maja. He hadn’t seen her since… well, a while ago.

Gabe and William were currently trying to get the restraints off of Tom, who had been in the machine the whole time, watching everything in front of him. Ryland and Ryan were in the process of waking up the others, who were slowly coming to. As soon as Gerard saw Mikey open his eyes, he backed up into the shadows. It wasn’t time yet. It would never be time. Not until Gerard could think of a way to apologize for walking out of Mikey’s life. Which would never happen.

He still couldn’t figure out where Maja went. Scanning the room, there was the machine, the open expanse of the room, the control area - his heart stopped in his chest, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure which way he should start running.

Maja was standing at the controls, hand poised at the lever. “I said because you didn’t do it. Doesn’t mean I can’t!” she yelled before throwing all of his might into pulling it.

The metallic blades surrounding the machine began to whip around. William, still trying to get the shackles off of Tom, was yanked away from the machine by Gabe before he could be split in half. They created this strange wind in the room, blowing whatever was on the ground around.

The first scream to fill the room was Tom’s, loud and raw sounding. His face contorted in pain as he doubled over, screams erupting from his lips. Knuckles turning an angry white color, he grabbed onto the metal posts in an effort to try to keep himself on two feet, but the pain quickly knocked him down to his knees. As he screamed, the white light that had started to glow throughout the machine was spreading.

It bathed over the four on the floor, causing them to begin to writhe in pain, moans of anguish coming from them. They curled into themselves in a vain attempt at comfort, only to be racked with more pain, shaking it throughout their whole body.

“Pete, what are we going to do?” Brendon asked, his voice shaking uncontrollably. “We have to stop - I can’t watch this…” He grabbed onto Pete in a death grip as Spencer let out a hiss, trying to bite down on his lip so he didn't scream.

But honestly, Pete's mind was throwing ideas at him that he knew would end it at least someone dying... Mark had said that once the machine was started, the process would be carried out. The only way it wouldn’t work was if the person died in the machine.

But he didn’t want Tom to die. He looked over at Tom, who could barely hold his head up at this point, soft moans coming from him. The only other thing he could think of was…

“Gerard!” he exclaimed, his heart beginning to race. He looked over at the dark haired boy helping Frank into a sitting position, who was watching the scene unfold with terrified eyes. As soon as their gazes met, it was like they shared the same thought.

“Already on it,” Gerard responded, taking a deep breath. He got ready to leave his body, but before he did, he quickly turned to Frank and kissed him square on the mouth. “I love you, Frankie,” he mumbled softly. Frank went to say something, but as he did, Gerard was running forward. As his eyes rolled into his head and he buckled at his knees, Jon grabbed him before he hit the ground. Frank finally understood what was happening He wanted to smile, knowing that Gerard was finally going to get to be the big brother he always wanted to be. It was what he had always wanted. He just didn't want to lose Gerard in the process.

The blades spinning around the machine began to slow, eventually coming to a stop. ‘Gerard in Maja’s body’ stood at the controls, breathing deeply as he clung to the lever on the machine. Call him a wuss, but possession wasn’t near as easy as it looked. You try battling it out with some person’s psyche and then see how you feel. Patrick, Spencer, Mikey and Mark were still writhing in a bit of pain, but no where near as close to what had been happening about thirty seconds ago. Slowly, their frantic movements calmed down.

Tom was another story.

Tom was scarcely balanced on his knees for support, with more of the platform and manacles holding him upright. His head hung down at his chest as he took in ragged, uneven breaths. Pete, Brendon, and Alex were trying to rouse the ones on the ground, while Gabe and Ryland were standing by Tom, trying to see what the best course of action would be to take with him.

“I know what we’re going to do,” Gerard told them, surprised at how different Maja voice could sound when there wasn’t that deceptive chill laced through it. “Unhook him from the machine. Quickly, before the reverse effect begins.”

“We’re not just going to let you do this,” Nate exclaimed, Hayley and Vicky matching his strides. “You think you can just get away with this? We won’t let you.”

“The only other option is death. So if you’re up for that, be my guest. However, I value my life. And I think everyone else in the room does as well. Now that the process has been stopped, it’s either we die, or the person in the machine dies; whichever comes first. Tom’s powers won’t let him die before the rest of us, either, so it’s your choice,” Gerard stated shortly. Nate simply frowned, but the girls backed up and stepped out of the way, as did Bob, Butcher, and Joe. Gabe and Ryland undid the cuffs, and along with Jon the three of them carried him over to a now conscious Mark and Patrick. Mark lifted his head into his lap before looking at Gerard imploringly.

He knew what had to be done. But no one really wakes up in the morning with a death wish. As he looked back at the heroes and to Mikey and his friends, he hoped that after this, maybe Mikey could forgive him. Still getting used to being in Maja’s body, he stumbled a little bit as he climbed into the machine, placing his hands onto the power sensors and looked to the heroes expectantly.

The others stared at him, their mouths wide open.

“You can’t do that!”

“Are you fucking nuts?”

“It’s suicide…”

“No, we’ll figure something else out…”

“Gerard…”

“We don’t have any other choice. I don’t know how much longer Tom is going to last, or how much longer until the reverse effect begins. Strap me in and start the machine before we all begin to die. I’m going to try to get out Maja as fast as possible, but…” he trailed off

“You can’t do this,” Frank said, but inside he knew it was the only way.

“Gerard?” Mikey whispered, rubbing his head as he pulled himself into a sitting position. He looked back at Frank, who Jon had given Gerard’s body, before turning back to the machine. “Is it really you?”

Dropping his head to avoid Mikey’s eyes, Gerard sighed. “Mikey, I sorry. It’s me. I’ve wanted to find you for so long, but…” Even though it wasn’t his brother’s flesh and blood, it didn’t matter. He scrambled to his feet, and threw himself around Gerard, giving him the hug that Mikey had been saving for the past ten years. Gerard took a deep breath, tightening his grip on Mikey and not wanting to let go. Selfish.

"Please. Not again," Mikey mumbled.

Gerard let go of him, pushing him back slightly. He smiled, squeezing onto Mikey’s shoulder. “I have to, Mikey. I have to do something right. For once.”

“I have spent almost ten fucking years trying to find you, and you can’t leave me again. I won’t let you,” he whispered, pressing his face into Gerard shoulder. Taking a shaky breath, Gerard pushed him away again. He looked over at Tom, whose chest was barely rising and falling at this point. Mark was gripping his hand tightly, his lips moving as he whispered things to Tom. At the same time, his eyes never moved from Gerard.

“If I don’t do this, everyone else will die. You have to let me, Mikey.” He looked to the other heroes for help, but none of them were seeming to agree with him. Even the villains weren’t willing to help him. Was it just him that wanted to survive? Fuck, he hated trying to be noble. He knew Maja had telekinetic powers she rarely talked about, and even more rarely used. Closing his eyes, he knew that possessing someone was hard, but trying to use their powers while possessing was like translating the Declaration of Independence into Russian after winning a shot drinking contest.

He had to do it. As he grit his teeth and felt the power begin to thrum through his – well, technically Maja’s – head, he regretted ever getting involved with any of these people in this room. Because only brought him heartbreak. With a flash of light, Mikey went flying backwards, crashing onto the ground by Frank, who tried to jump up, but couldn’t really do it, so he settled for rolling on to his side and pushing himself forward until he was next to Mikey. The other heroes tried to rush forward to stop Gerard, but he sent up a wall in another flash of white ligth.

Working as fast as he could, the restraints snapped around his wrists. By this time, he was exhausted – or it could’ve been Maja’s body, he really didn’t know because it was so confusing. With the last burst of energy he had, he moved the switch on the power controls, setting the machine into motion. The familiar white light burst through the room, encircling Patrick, Spencer, Mikey and Mark, causing them to double over in pain again. As Pete wrapped his arms around Patrick, trying to hold him upright, he looked at Frank, who was holding onto both of the Way brothers for dear life, as if he was scared that he might lose them.

“What is he doing?! He’s just repeating it over again!” Pete yelled, placing a soft hand on Patrick’s back as he squirmed around in pain. He couldn’t believe this. As Patrick gripped onto his t-shirt, keening in pain, Pete felt like he was dying right along with him.

“No, wait,” Gabe said, motioning over to the machine.

A loud scream erupted from Maja before she suddenly collapsed, her legs breaking down underneath her like a marionette with its strings cut. Her head dropped all the way backward, her hair practically reaching her waist now. The white light began to bubble away, the metallic blades around the machine beginning to slow down.

Patrick slowly stilled in Pete’s arms, his face buried in Pete’s bicep. Pete looked down, stunned for the second time as he felt Patrick’s breath brush against his arm. He looked around the room, to see that Mikey, Spencer and Mark were all the same way. With small movement, Patrick tipped his head up to face Pete, his eyes still terrified. “It’s okay,” Pete whispered, holding him tighter. He opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped and turned to face the commotion that was erupting in the other side of the room. Gabe and William were currently hold Frank back as he yelled and screamed incoherently.

“He’s dead! You all let him die! You cowardly fuckers, you let him die!” Frank yelled, kicking out. Landing one square on Gabe’s shin, he gained enough momentum to pull away from them and sprint across the room to Gerard’s limp body. Sliding across the floor, he pulled at Gerard, hoping that human contact, touch, anything, would wake him up.

“Frankie, stop,” Mikey called out softly from his spot on the floor next to Mark. Mark, who was still clinging to an unconscious Tom grabbed onto Mikey with his free hand. “Frankie…please,” he called out again.

“Mikey, I’m not going to let you lose your brother!” Frank yelled as he began to shake the older Way brother’s shoulders..

“But it’s what he wanted…” Mikey said softly. Resorted to slapping Gerard while he clung to him, Frank eventually broke down, his body nearly collapsing on top Gerard’s. This wasn’t fair. Mikey had just found his brother and now he had to lose him again… And he… And he couldn’t lose Gerard either. No matter how bad what Gerard did may have seemed, he couldn’t stand the thought of him dying. “Wake up, you fucker,” he whispered, scared at the fact his voice was shaking with the threat of tears, because might’ve meant that everything wasn’t going to be okay… His head pitching forward onto Gerard’s shoulder. As hands grabbed at him, trying to pull him to his feet and away from Gerard, he just wanted to lay there and die next to him.

“Frankie?” He froze. That wasn’t Mikey. He knew that wasn’t Mikey. He whirled around, finding Gerard blinking up at him. Throwing his arms around Gerard’s neck, he couldn’t think of anything to say that would possibly express how happy he was at this moment. It would’ve been an understatement. Gerard laughed weakly. “Missed you too, Frankie.”

At that moment, a collective yet unspoken sigh of relief seemed to pass throughout the room.

“It worked,” Alex whispered amazed, walking over to the machine. He started to reach out to grab at Maja’s hand, but he pulled away. Ryland grabbed onto his hand, squeezing it and smiling. “Does this mean she’s…?” he asked softly.

Ryland simply nodded. “She can’t hurt you anymore.” Alex blushed smiling before letting himself be wrapped up in Ryland’s arms.

“Well. That was… horrible,” Spencer muttered, rubbing his head. It was all he could get out before Brendon tackled him, throwing him to the ground in a full body hug.

As Pete felt Patrick sit up on his own, he loosened his arms from around him. Patrick looked around the room before looking at Pete, his eyes quickly dropping. “I understand now. What you did…” Pete said quietly.

“I just. I didn’t want to be the cause of your downfall, so I thought the best way was to get out.” Slowly, Patrick lifted his head to meet Pete’s eyes, and when he did, he was a mess of emotion that Pete had never seen before. Instead of choosing to say anything, Pete simply threw his arms around Patrick. There was a moment of _oh shit_ when Patrick went rigid, but when he fell into the embrace, Pete knew that maybe he had done okay…

“Anyone see a closet around here?” The yell from Gabe caught everyone’s attention, looking up to find him with William practically trying to get into his skin with the way he was holding onto him. Gabe grinning cheekily, he shrugged. “What can I say?”

For a moment, an expression of confusion washed across Patrick’s face. As he noticed the Brendon, Ryan, Jon… that they were all here. In the room. In the same uniform as Pete. Which could only mean that…“Oh fuck,” Patrick muttered under his breath. He really needed to get background information on people before deciding to hang out with them. Or, at least, an understand of who the fuck he was living with. Brendon, Ryan and Pete were all watching him expectantly at this point.

With a smile on his face, he laughed. “I really need to make new, less dangerous friends.”

  
**.epilogue.**

“Honey, I’m home,” Tom crowed, walking through the bedroom door early after he had been released from the medical. Mark rolled his eyes, laying back down onto his bed, and for a second, he wondered if Tom was addressing him or the room. For all he knew, it was probably the bedroom…

But at this point, it doesn’t really bother Mark. Because _this_ is Tom. Tom, who talks to rooms in a house or smoked the crabgrass that grew in Frank’s backyard or dumped water on Bill and Gabe to get them off the couch. This was _his_ Tom. When he looks back up, he realizes that Tom is watching him, a half-smile on his face.

“How did you do it?” he asks quietly.

Mark already understands the question, but he asks “What?” because he’s selfish and he loves hearing Tom’s voice too much.

“Watch me do all those fucked up things. I could’ve never…” His voice trails off and he turns away, but Mark understands where he’s going with it. And honestly, he’s asked himself the same question almost every single day since they lost Tom. The thought, though, is oddly endearing, and he finds himself smiling.

“Because I knew this would happen. You’re not that easy to get rid of, fucker.”

Slowly, Tom walks over to the side of the bed, leaning down just enough until the foreheads barely brush, and Mark thinks to himself _this is why. because I fucking can’t live without you…_

It isn’t until Tom laughs that Mark realizes that he just said that out loud. As Tom leans down to kiss him, a feeling that had become strangely lost to him but rushes back within seconds, Mark wraps his hand around Tom’s neck, pulling him downward onto the bed with a laugh.

“I missed you too, Marky.”

And for the first time in a long time, Mark knows that everything is going to be alright…


End file.
